I have the opportunity to take on a small 457(b) plan and want to understand them before I agree. Is there a pretty good source, a 457(b) plans for dummies source, that will educate me on the finer points of this type of plan?

Can anyone throw out some areas that I should watch out for with regards to these plans?

thanks

We have a client with a DB and a 401(k). Owner only, no employees.

The plans have separate accounts and each has its own employer ID number. Can the sponsor purchase real estate with money from each of the two plans?

I found, online, the EGTRRA Basic Plan Document 03 at:

www.fidelity.com/static/dcle/ira/documents/se401kfrp.pdf

Does anybody have a link to the GUST document?

I recently read that an HRA will have to comply with this fee. We offer an HRA in lieu of health insurance, like an opt-out benefit to our employees. The document I read indicated that the fee is $1 per covered beneficiary and is due July 31, 2013. Does anyone have any experience or expertise on this?

if a plan allows all participants the right to direct their accounts to self directed brokerage and one of the trustees wants to invest in an investment only available to very high net worth individuals would this be a rights and benefits issue or does the fact that the limits are not plan imposed make this allowed? I know there are quite a few older threads on this topic but not so many on investment imposed or broker imposed minimums.

403(b) plan is with Mutual of America and allows loans. Employee takes out loan and employer does not start withholding and remitting loan payments until something like 100 days later. Mutual of America defaults the loan. The Employer doesn't stop the loan repayments after the default and Mututal of America continues to accept them. Is the employee just 'out' the loan repayments that were made after the loan was defaulted? It seems that the deemed amount should be reduced or the loan repayments returned?

One of my clients reorganized in 2012 and as a result now have 4 unrelated employers in the plan. there is not enough common ownership to be considered a controlled group but I think they could be a ASG.

These are all companies that handle investments.

Company A is considered a Management company. They have all the administrative employees under them.

Company B handes the insurance investments,

Company C handles private investments

Company D handles real estate investments.

Could this possibly be an ASG?

We have a participant who died in February of 2009. He was age 63 at the time of death.

The beneficiary is a Irrevocable Trust. The Trustee of the Irrevocable Trust wanted to delay distribution until one of the beneficiaries of the trust attained a certain age.

He now wants the plan to distribute the deceased participant's balance to the trust, but he does not want withholding.

Since the 5 year rule states the distribution must be made by the end of the year which contains the 5th anniversary of the date of death, can this be considered a RMD?

Is there any way that this distribution can be considered not eligible to be rolled over, and therefor mandatory withholding would not apply?

Thanks

I need to reallocate forfeitures in a plan with a group based allocation. The plan entry requirements are age 21, 6 months of service, monthly entry. My idea is to allocate forfeitures to those participants with 1000 hours and who are employed on the last day, but I do not want to give an allocation to the otherwise excludable employees (all are NHCEs). This is possible 1) because it is a group based allocation where each employee is in their own rate group and 2) though I am giving nothing to the otherwise excludable employees, they are tested seperately from those participants who are not excludable. Am I correct?

Plan document's eligibility is 6 months of service. Entry is 1/1 and 7/1

Employee A has has following employrment history:

1. hired 1/7/2008

2. terminates 3/31/2008

3. rehired 6/9/2008

4. terminates again 9/28/2008

5. rehired 1/25/2012

6. terminated 6/22/2012

Has this person met the eligibilty requirements for the plan? I don't believe so, but the software system is giving him an entry date of 1/1/12.

Any thoughts...

A company sponsors a 401k plan where the two owners are the only participants (they are the only employees). They are planning on hiring dozens of people within the next few months and were wondering whether it was possible to "freeze" the plan via amendment so that these employees cannot become participants even if they would otherwise satisfy the plan's eligibility requirements. They do not want to terminate the plan because they will probably be back to just employing the owners in about 5 years, at which point they would "unfreeze" the plan and resume making deferrals and profit sharing contributions. Even though it's very likely that the overwhelming majority of these new employees will not defer and, therefore, not have any account balances in the plan, they would rather not have them participate as it would significantly increase the plan's administrative cost. Is it possible to do this?

Hello all,

I have a client who would like to open up payroll and make a bonus for 2012. Then he'd defer most of that bonus as a 2012 401(k) contribution. This doesn't sound correct to me, but I'm having a hard time finding something that spells it out. Any pointers out there?

Thanks!

Are rewards or incentives for participants who defer certain rates, or increase their rates of deferral during the year, allowed outside of the plan? Inside the plan we have Match, outside could be some kind of non-(or not so)-monetary reward like a gift card of certain levels based on rates of deferral or rates of increase?

Example, when analysing year end data, employees who defer as follows get the following:

6% - $100 gift card, 3-5% - $50 gift card, 1-2% - $25 gift card

I admit I have not thought this through, and wonder the role of nondiscrimination testing, but I have been tasked to look at non-traditional non-plan design related ideas for boosting partipation rates without auto features.

The situation is this. The owner fathered a child many years ago and now that child works for him. At the age of 5 (i think that's correct), the child's name was legally changed and the biological father says that the child is no longer legally his. Does family attribution apply here for purposes of Key Employee determination?

An accountant has asked me the following question, which I haven't heard before, and I am not an IRA expert.

He has someone that files jointly and the employer does not have an employer sponsored plan (his wife's employer does if that matters).

Their combined income is over the limits so that he cannot make a Roth IRA contribution. He can make a deductible regular IRA contribution, but he doesn’t want to.

The question is, can he make a regular IRA contribution and elect it to be non deductible?

If that is possible, he then wants to know if after the non deductible regular IRA contribution is made, can it be rolled to a Roth IRA.

I told him if he is able to make a deductible IRA contribution, he could do that and roll it to a Roth IRA, but since the regular IRA contribution would be for 2012, and the conversion would be 2013, he doesn't want to do that.

Thanks

We’ve gotten involved with a small db plan that allows active participants who have reached normal retirement to start receiving benefits. The plan also does not have a lump sum option.

Once an active participant reaches NRA and goes into pay-status, the trustees purchase an annuity (based on the participant’s AB and payment option) which is owned by the plan’s trust and monthly payments are made to the trust. On a monthly basis, the trust will then distribute a check to the participant. Note that because of post-NRA adjustments to the participant's AB (increase in salary/service), the annuity contracts do not match the actual payments distributed to the participants.

Question: Should the market value of that annuity contract be included in the funding calculations, or can the value of the contract (and liabilities associated that that portion of the AB) be eliminated from the funding calculations? Also, what about the AFTAP?

Any opinions or a regulation site would be appreciated.

I have a client who wants to terminate their 401(k) and start a SIMPLE 401(k). There have been no employee deferrals to the 401(k) plan this year, but the two outstanding loans have continued to be repaid. Does that violate the rule about not "benefitting" under another plan this year? Thanks.

DB plan starts termination process. 8 out of 30 participants choose annuity instead of lump sum. Lump sums are paid out. When annuity information and quotes are assembled, the cost is up to double the lump sums.

Can the termination be amended to only pay out the lump sums, and the sponsor wait 3 to 5 years to see if interst rates change and therefore cost of annuities comes down?

I've been trying to move a Mass Mutual VA SIMPLE IRA account into an IRA held by my BD. We fill out the paperwork and send it off. However, Mass Mutual refuses to move the assets, and they will not give a reason. I am guessing that they want the request on their own paperwork? Can they do this? The client made a request to move the funds, yet they are refusing.

For ERISA exempt public entities (such as publicly funded charter schools), who is a good vendor that can be used? I am an advisor desperately seeking a lower cost option. All that is out there are high fee VA companies & Lincoln Investment Planning who puts a 1% wrap on their plan. These non-ERISA 403b accounts are just as easy for these companies to maintain as IRA's are, yet IRA's come with $20 or lower yearly account fees.

Anyway, anyone know of a good low cost vendor for ERISA exempt plans?