I received a call today, a participant has a loan in a plan and is leaving his employer. He wants to roll the loan balance into the new plan at his new employer. Can this be done... if the distributing plan and receiving plan both allow? (I guess it first depends on the distributing plan)

This is a welcome and necessary change given the internationally reported efforts of cyber-terrorists and other dissidents to log on to MYPPA and alter unfunded vested benefits !!!

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80 year old participant died this year. 86 year old husband/owner is beneificiary. I am reading conflicting information on future RMD's.

Page 6-22 of this link states if the life expectancy of the deceased participant is greater than the beneficiary, you use that divisor and reduce it by one each calendar year.

IRS RMD's

The 401(k) Answer Book (2011 edition) makes no mention of reducing the divisor by one each calendar year for a spousal beneficiary. It states as follows "If the participant has a designated beneficiary as of 9/30 of the calendar year following the calendar year of death, the the distribution period is based on the beneficiary's life expectancy using the ben. age as of his or her birthday in the calendar year following the calendar year of the part. death or, if longer, it is based on the participants remaining life expectancy. In subsequent years, the distribution period is reduced by one for each year after the calendar year in which life expectancy was originally determined. HOWEVER, if the spouse is the participants sole beneficiary, then the spouse's life expectancy is recalculated each year based on their birthday for the year in which a min. dist. is required. For this purpose, life expectancies are based on the single life table"

I may be over thinking this or misinterpreting but I'm thinking the former is accurate rather than the latter as I have found more than one discrepancy in my usage of the Wolters Kluwer's answer books.

Now that we're in the home stretch of creating disclosures - how are others out there assisting plan sponsors with actually using the disclosures?

Are firms simply providing the disclosure and letting the plan sponsors know it's coming and leaving it at that?

Are firms providing additional info outside of the disclosure itself or providing some sort of background on the new regs and the plan sponsors' responsibilities included therein?

Are firms helping the plan sponsor out with reading, reviewing, interpreting disclosures?

Since we are accepting fees (even though in many cases we are a co-fiduciary), those of us providing these disclosures are not impartial and cannot give independent assistance with reviewing the disclosures. I've seen new services cropping up that offer independent review of disclosures, but in many cases that could result in adding another layer of fees.

Is there any type of checklist out there that a plan sponsor can independently use to make his / her review?

Any comments, thoughts or inspiration would be appreciated...

My wife has a private HSA eligible HDHP. However, I have been reading that we may not be able to contribute to an HSA because my employer provides a plan made up of an employer funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement and an employee funded Flexible Spending Account. My employer plan is use-it-or-lose-it for all funds in a given year (regardless of whether it was employer or employee funded).

Does anyone know if I can or can not contribute to an HSA?

Thanks.

Can anyone point to the authority for both the original plan (that made the distribution) and the alternative defined contribution plan being disqualified if a plan sponsor permits distributions to employees after terminating a 401(k) plan when another member of the controlled group sponsors an alternative defined contribution plan?

Can anyone point to the authority for both the original plan (that made the distribution) and the alternative defined contribution plan being disqualified if a plan sponsor permits distributions to employees after terminating a 401(k) plan when another member of the controlled group sponsors an alternative defined contribution plan?

Are Corporations A and B a controlled group or under common control under 414(b) or ©?

A has voting and non-voting stock. Two brothers each owns 1% of the total value of all stock and each owns 50% of the total voting power of all stock. Their four adult sons each owns 24.5% of the total value of all stock. (Adult meaning over age 21.)

B has voting and non-voting stock. The two brothers each owns 39% of the total value of all stock and each owns 39% of the total voting power of all stock. Their four adult sons each owns 5.5% of the total value and total voting power of all stock.

I got this question twice recently. Maybe my easy answer should be re-thought.

With Ford and GM amending their plans to offer a lump sum to current retirees, I wonder about the case of a retiree who choose a J&S, but the spouse is now deceased. If you bought a commercial annuity for this retiree, the price would (I assume) value this as a LA to one person. Suppose the plan pays a LS (417e3) to this retiree, would such LS be based on the remaining LA? Any interpretation that might require the plan to value it as a LS of a J&S benefit?

A question came up which I thought might be familiar to some of you who deal with Fiduciary requirements.

Say I am the fiduciary to profit sharing plan A. The company sponsoring Plan A happens to be an auditing firm that does ERISA audits. As fiduciary to this plan, I am receiving compensation.

I'm also fiduciary to a new profit sharing plan B, for a completely unrelated business. The Plan Administrator is looking for an auditor for their plan. I happen to think that the auditing company (A) for whose plan I am a fiduciary, is a highly competent and reputable company.

Am I allowed to recommend them to Employer B? Is it ok if I recommend them as long as I disclose that I am a fiduciary to their plan? Or am I not permitted, either by law or ethics, to recommend this firm?

My uninformed guess is that I could recommend them as long as I disclose that I'm a fiduciary to their planl, and thus receive compensation from them?

Try to get a feel for what other firms are doing with respect to the disclosures for SDBA. Does anyone know how some of the brokerae firms are handling the requirements under FAB 2012-2? Schwab, Fidelity ect? Also I see there is some general information about these SDBA that Plans must provide. Does anyone have a sample?

When contracts are combined for reporting purposes by TIAA-CREF, they also combine the Schedule A reporting. I actually think this applies to a few of my plans; where the reporting was always combined (i.e., since pre-2009),it has never been reported separately so it's been treated as though there was only one contract.

Has anyone had to deal with this issue before?

We are currently using Relius PPD VS 401k/PS Plan Document, but are considering moving to ASC, FTWilliam or McKay Hockman. I'm looking for comments related to issues with these providers, such as unexpected limitations in plan designs, inefficient amendment process, problems with batch processing to generate the required various notices. Any feed back is appreciated.

Thanks,

An employee works at a company a short period of time before she quits. She doesn't work long enough to meet the eligibility rules for a participant. 4 months later, she goes to work for the holding company (all in 1 controlled group) for a few years.

Does her time with the holding company count towards her eligibility to participate in the first company? I say no but someone else in my office says yes. Any one have any suggestions?

Are loans (other than participant) qualifying plan assets for the audit waiver requirement? The loans are real estate loans.

Thank you,

Annette Leerhoff

Is there any way a small plan can suspend Safe Harbor Match mid-year and continue 401(k) for NHCE's without top-heavy contribution? Spouse of HCE has made 401(k) contributions.

Took over a frozen plan and the plan has $1.231M in prepaid and loss of $1.491M.

EOY PBO is $1.243M and assets are $0.983M.

Shoud we continue carrying those liabilities forward? The accountant didn't like the suggestion to have it expensed.

I have come across the following situation. There is a group of unrelated veterinary specialists that are sharing the services of a number of employees. It is my understanding that each of the owners of the unrelated veterinarians (FSOs) own a portion of the company that employees the shared employees (B-org). Apparently several years ago it was determined that each of the plans sponsored by the unrelated FSOs must cover the shared employees. They include all hours worked by the shared employee in determining if the employee is eligible for the plans. I am OK with this so far. But here is the rub. In determining benefits and in testing they only include the portion of the shared employees compensation that has been determined to be associated with the work performed for that particular company? Is this legit? I don't have that much experiece with related groups in general but my gut feeling is that this is not correct?

I have a copy of the General test for one of the companies from last year (they have a New Comp allocation) and it just uses the fraction of the comp attributed for that particular company?

A plan wants to increase match in 401k plan to 25% of first 15% saved. As long as plan can pass ACP, any issues relative to discrimination?

Participant in the plan has provided the bill for funeral expense as evidence of hardship, but along with it, he's provided the check showing that he made the payment to the funeral home. Making the payment has caused hardship - if you have proof showing that the participant paid the expense that qualifies as the hardship reason could you still make hardship distribution - the bill was paid on 6/7/12, and the invoice from the funeral home does show that the participant was behind in the payment for the service as of 4/21/12... Any thoughts?

My original thought - no go on hardship since the hardship reason no longer exists due to being paid off...