An employer sponsoring a self-insured plan offers two health insurance packages, one for highly compensated individuals and one for non-highly compensated individuals. (The example is simplified from the actual situation and is hypothetical.)

HCIs can choose among an HMO, a $400/$800 deductible PPO, a $1,000/$3,000 deductible PPO, and a $3,000/$6,000 deductible HDHP.

Non-HCIs can choose among a $0 deductible PPO, a $500/$1,000 deductible PPO, a $1,000/$3,000 deductible PPO, and a $3,000/$6,000 deductible HDHP.

Other than the deductibles, the benefits offered under each of the options is the same.

Does this arrangement violate the benefits portion of the self-insured medical plan nondiscrimination tests because the benefits offered to the HCIs are not "identical" to those offered to the non-HCIs? (That is, non-HCIs cannot elect the HMO or the $400/$800 deductible PPO.)

Thanks!

We are trying to design a 401k w/ x-tested PS for Employer A, which is an LLC owned 60% by Employer B and 40% by Employer C. B and C are also LLCs. Employer B has three equal partners and Employer C has two equal partners. The 5 respective partners of Employers B and C each recieve K-1 income from their respective employers. None of them receive income directly from Employer A. Can the 5 partners be considered employees of Employer A and be included in it's 401k/PS plan based on their K-1 income from Employers B and C?? Thanks.

I believe employer contributions to a profit sharing or 401(k) plan must be funded in cash correct?

In other words, if a company has non-related stock (basically an investment), they cannot use that investment to fund the plan correct?

Thanks

A small 401k plan is not sure if all the Form 5500 filings are up to date. I searched for filings on the EFAST2 website with no results. I then searched FreeErisa.com and the latest filing I found was 2001 & 2002. The Plan Sponsor does not have copies or any returns for me to look at and they were using bundled TPA services with a provider that is no longer in the business. I feel pretty confident now that 2002 was the last filing but is there a way I could be more sure since I guess the tax id could have been incorrectly entered preventing my search from locating the filings?

It is my understanding that DFVCP is available for all missed filings as long as there have not been any notifications of late filings from the DOL/IRS & accordig to the Plan Sponsor there has not been.

Anyone have experience correcting 10 years of late 5500s and if so any advice?

Can a government 457(b) Plan also administer a 403(b) plan? The 403(b) plan would only accept contributions from eligible employees of the public sector employer.

What are the tax implications of moving a life insurance contract out of a qualified plan (profit sharing) while the insured/participant is still living? Thanks for any help...

Employer wants to amend a 401(k)/PS plan to allow for in-service withdrawals of profit sharing balances at age 50. However, the demographics would only allow 3 people to take advantage of this, 2 of which are HCE's...the remaining NHCE's would not have access to this benefit and the provision would fail the general non discrimination test (70%). The HCEs are ages 53 and 52, the NHCE over 50 is age 58. Seems it would be better to amend the definition of Normal Retirement Age to age 55 and allow these withdrawals upon attaining NRA - the 58 year old NHCE is really the one who needs the non hardship withdrawal. Comments anyone?

We are a TPA for many Plans that have only Self-Directed Brokerage Accounts (SDBA). Almost all are places with one advisor and is like a "retail" account. Q&A 39, which was just added, now says that these investments are not DIAs and therefore do not require the fund expense information in the annual notice. HOWEVER, there is still some other information that must be included (like website, 800 number, etc for making trades, info about SDBAs and other things). Does anyone have a template of what these 404a5 Annual Participant Notices should look like for SDBA-only Plans?

Plan doc has each person in own his category. This year cross testing won't work. Owner's comp is around $160,000 and the employees are around $35,000. When testing on an allocation basis, can I impute disparity at the $40,000 level instead of the taxable wage base. In other words can I get the same result as if I had no categories and just did a simple integrated calculation.

Anyone had a situatiuon where a client (a non-profit in this case) funds their "profit sharing" each pay-period in a 401(k) plan, but would like to change the rate mid-year? There are no allocation conditions.

My concern is that everything in the document about allocating profit sharing uses annual language. I'm on the EGTRRA Corbel Prototype (I know, I know, we're getting the VS for PPA--so we can make amendments and then argue that they were indeed minor).

If anyone has thoughts or can suggest a workaround I would appreciate it. For example, would a board resolution do it?

If a cash balance plan has a variable interest crediting rate or has changed from a fixed to a variable rate, is it required that accrued benefits be valued for purposes of computing annual PBGC premium liabilities by projecting account balances to ARA using an average of the last 5 years of crediting rates? Opinions please.

I have a defined benefit plan on Relius. The Plan year changed from 1/1 to 7/1. Does anyone know how I can create a new Plan Year that uses the 7/1 date rather than the 1/1 date? There are over 350 participants and I do not want to re-enter the employee information.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Can anyone recommend a free resource to use for benchmarking fees under the service provider disclosures? Has anyone benechmarked what they are paying? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated? Thanks.

(1) A 401(k) Plan offers participants the option of (a) not self-directling their contributions, in which case the deposits are made to a pooled account and directed by the trusteees, or (b) self-directed into a mutual fund account menu.

Do the 404(a) participant disclosure regs apply to those in (a) above? No fees are being deducted from the pooled account but I assume that there are still asset fees. That would trigger the notice, correct?

(2) Who provides the notice on brokerage accounts? For example, if a plan has 20 participants and everyone has a Schwab account, Does Schwab provide the 404(a) notice? Would it detail every dollar spent on trades or other purchases or would the notice simply be one stating what the fees are if trades are made?

Thanks

An owner of a small 401k plan passed away. He was age 55.

Divorced from his spouse so he named his 2 children as beneficiary.

If both are under age 18, what distribution options are there? Can they legally make a decision in regard to this matter? Do they have the opportunity to have the account rolled over to an IRA?

If one is under 18 and the other over 18 (assumed that they are 50/50 beneficiaries) we can treat 1 beneficiary different from the other, correct?

To make things more interesting, the deceased participant had an outstanding loan in the plan, total still outstanding of $18,000. How does that factor into the mix?

Thanks for any comments.

I have a client with a few "Davis Bacon" employees (most of their employees are not). Generally, the plan has a one-year eligibility wait. However, Davis Bacon contributions start from day one. All plan assets are self-directed. However, the client wants the Davis Bacon money to default into a QDIA. The affected employees could switch their money into different funds of their choosing the next day if desired. The client does not want this QDIA route for any other money types in the plan. The document is a Datair Volume Submitter; and I don't see any option under self-direction to cover this treatment for just one money type. The client could implement it as policy, but it doesn't sit right with me. Any suggestions?

If compensation is earned in the last pay period for the year but not paid until the next year, which year would this compensation fall under?

Hi all,

I'm not clear as to what the following Code Sections mean....

436(f)(3)©

436(i)(2)

Would anyone care to shed some light on them?

Also, am I correct that Section 436(j)(3)(A) means no mandatory burn of COB/PFB if assets/FT is >= 100%? For example, assume assets of $1 million, FT of $990k, COB of $100k, and PFB of $200k. No need to burn any of the COB/PFB?

TIA

.. Scott

Where would one get the information necessary for preparing a 404a5 notice? We have Mornginstar for Rates of Return, and expense ratios, but where would we get things like returns for benchmarks, what the appropriate benchmark is, as well as a trading restrictions/fees?

The recordkeepers must be getting the data from somewehre, but where? Is it obtainable on a smaller scale?

A small group of our F5558 extensions were filed before 7/31 without the EIN. Does anyone know if we can fix this or do we simply have an invalid extension and now a late 5500?