The instructions for 5500 say to efile with a DFVCP statement. Does anyone have a sample of what to put on this statement?

August 2010 employer incorrectly pays out a $10k account balance as a lump sum - $8k to participant, $2k FIT - participant was not eligible for distribution - $10k is noted on 5500 as a PT.

October 2011 participant pays back $8k that was rec'd - but the FIT is not recovered... As of July 2012, no 5330's have yet been filed - the kicker: the plan terminated 1/1/12 and the participant's balance has been paid out in full under the termination.

1) is one 5330 completed at this time for 2010 and 15% excise tax is based on lost earnings for the period 8/10-12/10? this 5330 is late...

2) is a 2nd 5330 completed for 2011 showing 2 PT's - the first for the lost earnings related to '10 reported on the late 5330 noted in item 1) above and a 2nd PT that is the lost earnings based on the full $10k from 1/11-10/11 + lost earnings on the unpaid $2k for the period 10/11-12/11? this 5330 can be extended still

3) since the plan is now paid out due to termination - how is the $2k portion of the PT that was never resolved handled?

4) the employer had paid no lost earnings to the plan - and since it is now terminated and fully paid out, there is no plan to pay lost earnings to regardless, how are the lost earnings handled?

Any thoughts would be appreciated...

Several other threads on this board raise this issue, but do not answer it: When related employers sponsor a single plan, and mid-year a transaction occurs such that the employers are no longer related, there are multiple employers sponsoring the plan. Assuming no issues with plan document provisions, eligibility, etc., my sole questions concern the date on which the plan will be treated as a multiple employer plan:

When exactly is the plan treated as a multiple employer plan? As of the date of the transaction? As of the first day of the plan year in which the transaction occurred? As of the first day of the plan year next following the date of the transaction? Is there any official guidance on this issue?

Thanks!

I understand that Separate Trust Agreements were submitted along with the plan document providers EGTRRA Plans (Volume Submiiter etc.) for IRS approval. After approval, its typical for trust companies to make changes to the agreements. My question - do changes to the original trust agreement trigger a resubmission for approval or does the IRS accept changes that are not material?

I would like to know what the qualified beneficiary's rights are in choosing his/her health coverage. in other words, if it is during the open enrollment period, can the qualified beneficiary choose single coverage on an HMO plan while the former employee chooses single coverage on the PPO plan?

I know they do a HIPAA checklist and are going to make sure the health plan is doing all the notices and disclosures (WHCRA, mothers of newborn rights, special enrollment, creditable coverage, etc.). Will they be delving in PPACA enforcement? If anyone has had a recent one, I'd like to hear any kind of input on your experience. Thanks much.

Any thoughts on the elimination of a 410(b) fail safe provision mid-year? TAM 9735001 basically states you can't change allocations for anyone who has already satisfied the allocation conditions of the Plan for the year. But with the add back you are suspending your allocation conditions--so you don't know, who, if anyone, will have to be added back. It would seem that for the first typical add back--participants who are employed on the last day of the plan year but don't have the requisite hours of service--it would not be a problem since they haven't yet satisfied the last day requirement. But what about from there? Is this an issue? If so, any other issues other than TAM 9735001

Is VCP available for a 403b plan that wants to retroactively amend the plan for something?

Thanks!

Can an employer start a new 401(k) plan now, and give safe harbor notice at the same time

that the plan is effective?

The employer previously had a 401(k) plan that was terminated in 2009 or 2010. Employer

has not had a pension plan in effect between the termination of the prior 401(k) plan and now.

They want to start a new 401(k) before the end of this year and to have safe harbor matching

for the short plan year (from now until 12/31/2012).

Is the old 401(k) plan that terminated in 2009 or 2010 considered at all in determining when the

"new" safe harbor 401(k) plan can be established and when employees must be given notice?

I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" if we are putting our 8955-SSA on extension and we still having our clients file them on paper. Do you we have the client attach a copy of the 5558 to the 8955-SSA when filing on paper?

I acquired an individually directed 401(k) plan that transferred its assets from one brokerage firm to another. The date of transfer was around the beginning of April, 2012. Given that the client wants to terminate this plan, I requested all available monthly statements from the new firm so that i could balance them. I noticed that about a week after receiving the assets (20 mutual funds) about 5 were sold. Upon the sale of each investment, 28% was withheld and sent to the IRS. This is a small group with 1 lawyer, 1 secretary and 1 prior participant. The attorney had over $65,000 removed from his account on April 14th due to this error. It appears to me that the brokerage firm did not code the account as a qualified retirement plan. Whatever the reason was, monies left the trust that shouldn't have. I contacted the broker who was handling the account on Wednesday, 7/24 at about 3:00 for an explanation. He indicated that he would get right back to me. Not hearing from him, I contacted him again today, Thursday at about 9:30. He sounded almost surprised to hear back from me and indicated that he had given the problem to his "assistant" to look into and would, again, get back to me shortly with an answer. About 2 hours later, he calls back and says that he has good news. All of the monies were deposited back into the account. When I asked when this happened, he tells me the $65,000 was deposited back into the account just yesterday (coincidence?). All of this aside, I now have some questions:

1. This plan should not only be reimbursed for the monies incorrectly removed from it, but, for the lost earnings as well. Assuming a reasonable calculation of these earnings is performed, where should these lost earnings come from? I have been told that the local brokerage can't just write a check for the lost earnings as they are covered by FINRA and it could cause a problem. I also don't think that the Employer should be on the hook for these amounts either. Any suggestions?

2. Since these monies were removed contrary to the provisions of both the plan and trust documents, could we have a qualification issue here? I was going to terminate this plan informally, but, now I am thinking about a formal termination with the IRS being apprised of the problem and our solution and hope for their blessing by them approving the termination.

Maybe I am going a little overboard, but, I don't like my clients plans being put at risk to any degree without them knowing about it. It will obviously come down to the clients' decision on how to proceed.

Suggestions on how I should proceed and what I should recommend to the client?

Thanks,

Rick

I have been unsuccessfully looking fo a cite that I can share with my manager that outlines the acceptable ways that a SAR can be distributed. Can anyone assist me?

We use relius web client for efiling the 5500 form, I wanted to see what everyone else was doing now that you can efile the 8955-SSA through web client.

I know other people may not agree but we are finding it difficult to explain to clients that once they file the 5500 they have to drop down the "form set"

to 8955-SSA and file that next (if applicable).

A lot of our clients are getting confused as to why they have to file the 8955 form separatly .... i know we can explain that the SSA goes to the IRS and 5500 to the DOL. But i wanted to see what other people were doing. Maybe our directions aren't clear

Another option we were thinking about is sending the clients an email (password protected) with a copy of the SSA to review and then efiling ourselves since it has our TCC code anyway.

Any feedback would be great!

Is anyone mentioning email delivery of notices in the letter to the employer with the 404a notices?

If yes, what are you saying about it?

I am thinking of a paragraph that goes something like this.

Email may be used to deliver a copy of this disclosure to anyone who uses a computer as a normal part of their job everyday. Paper copies of this disclosure should be distributed to everyone else as soon as convenient but no later than August 30th.

(By the way, is August 30th the right date? Right now I am not sure of anything!)

After speaking with their third party administrator, an employer said that with respect to plan loans they were going to make one type of subaccount "lienable," but not "loanable." I know that it not being loanable means that you can't take loans against that subaccount, but I'm not sure what making the subaccount lienable actually entails. Anyone familiar with this terminology and know what the distinction is?

Company A sponsors a safe harbor 401(k). We just discovered that because of an unknown stock attribution (husband & wife) Company B is part of a controlled group with Company A. Company B did not adopt A's plan. We tested coverage under 410(b) and it fails.

We already used "otherwise excludable" and it did not help. What do you see as the minimum correction required. Note that this will end up in VCP since there may be past years involved.

I'm curious how others would handle this situation. 1/1 plan year, 401(k) plan. 2011 ADP test failed and refunds were issued in March of 2012.

The employer just now realizes that they forgot to deduct deferrals from 3 participants (NHCE's) during 2011. These 3 participants had elections on file, and were included on the ADP test with 0%.

The employer is going to self correct, and fund a QNEC equal to 50% of the missed deferral (based on the actual elections).

1) Should the 2011 ADP test be reprocessed to include the QNEC to come up with their deferral percentage? If so, then the test will have better results (since it uses the current year testing method) and the HCE's may need to send some of their refunds back to the plan.

2) Assume the 2011 ADP test did NOT include those 3 participants. So not only did the employer forget to deduct, but they weren't included in testing, either. Should the ADP test be reprocessed to include those members - and if so, do you use their QNEC amount to determine their deferral percentage?

There is no guidance that I'm aware of that addresses this....

A participating employer in a multiemployer welfare fund receives a request from CMS for participant enrollment/eligibility information to use in the Medicare Data Match program The participating employer forwards the request to the fund asking for the information. (The employer is required to provide the information under the Medicare rules so the disclosure would generally be "Required By Law" under the Privacy Rules.)

Can the fund disclose the information to the employer? A single employer/plan sponsor can disclose the information to CMS if it has the information in its role as employer because the information is not PHI. If it doesn't, it can also get the information from the health plan it sponsors if, in its capacity as plan sponsor, has certified to the plan that it complies with HIPAA, etc.

In my situation, the employer doesn't hold the information in its role as employer (the fund does) and the employer is not a plan sponsor so the certification rules are seemingly not applicable. I'm not sure the fund can disclose the information to the employer.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

I have a client who was asked to electronically sign their Form 5500. It didn't look like they would make the deadline so we filed a Form 5558 extension yesterday. Today, the client electronically signed the Form 5500. Do I need to go back and check the box with the "extension of time" and resubmit?

We have a husband and wife DB plan that terminated 12/31/09. They have not distributed assets because of illiquidity, but are ready to distribute now. Assets now exceed PVAB so we are going to allocate the excess. The $ limit does not apply but the 100% of comp limit does. Is there any problem with counting service for 2010 - 2012 toward the 10 year requirement?