If the Recordkeeper will be increasing a plans Administrative fees next year and these fees are paid by the plan participants and allocated gross per capita. Is there any legal requirement to notify the participants of this change in fees?

I have a client with a SIMPLE 401(k) Plan. They would like to start a safe harbor 401(k) plan next year. I know one of the requirements for sponsoring a SIMPLE plan is that the "eligible employer" can not maintain any other plan which means my client will no longer be an employer eligible to sponsor a SIMPLE 401(k) Plan after it commences its safe harbor 401(k) plan in 2011.

Is there any way to convert a SIMPLE 401(k) plan into a safe harbor 401(k) plan or merge the SIMPLE plan into the safe harbor 401(k) plan or must the client terminate the SIMPLE Plan? My client would like to avoid triggering distributions under the SIMPLE 401(k) Plan. Is there another way to accomplish this besides merging or converting?

Any advice is appreciated.

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether a change in plan design for 2011 to require participants to pay for medical coverage outside a cafeteria plan (i.e., on an after-tax basis) might somehow cause the plan to lose grandfathered status under PPACA? I don't think it would but I wonder if an argument can be made to the contrary.

(This possible change is an attempt to get around the cafeteria plan eligibility nondiscrimination tests, which would likely be failed on a control group basis.)

The following is a question an associate on another board had.

We are having a disagreement at work about employees participating in both a 401k and 457b.

Example: A new employee participated in a 401k at her old job. She contributed the maximum of $16,500. Now she works for the government and participates in a 457b. She contributes the maximum of $16,500 by year end. Is this legitimate and allowable?

Is there any legal issue with an employer mandating employees receive an annual physical exam? This would not be used to exclude them from coverage. As a matter of fact, the employer wouldn't even get the results, just a confirmation the physical was performed by a licensed physician. This would all be part of a wellness effort. Thanks.

I have an Auditor who states that an Employer can rebalance the unvested portion of a terminated participants account into the Forfeiture Account upon termination of employment, however the Recordkeeper states that an Employer cannot rebalance any participant monies, terminated or not. Further, the only way an employer can do this is a) after a 5 year break in service and, if the employer in fact does do this, - the employer must restore the 401k plus any gains or losses if the participant becomes re-employed within that 5 year window.

Help/Comments please!

A client is correcting a loan that exceeded the 50,000 limit and missed some loan repayments due to the fault of the employer. They are correcting it under EPCRS. Now, my question comes with the Form 5330. Do they have two PTs here: one for the loan in excess of 72(p)(2)(A) and one for the late loan repayments? So, the amount they owe is 15% of the loan excess and 15% of the interest on the late repayments?

Plan has been terminated. All of the participants have been paid out with the exception of one participant, who is deceased. The deceased participant's spouse has been charged with murdering the participant and will face trial shortly.

The plan was terminated more than a year ago. It did not provide for an annuity option.

Is there any way to transfer the deceased participant's account to an escrow account outside the plan, or does the account have to remain under the plan until the outcome of the trial is known?

Assume a plan uses a calendar year. For withdrawals occuring in 2009, the plan uses one of the permissible withdrawal liability allocation methods which includes an 8% investment return assumption. A participating employer requested a withdrawal liability estimate in 2009 and the plan gave it an estimate of $300,000 (assuming the withdrawal occurred in 2009). Effective 1/1/2010, the trustees changed the investment return assumption from 8% to 5.5% (everything else about the withdrawal liabilty allocation method remainded the same). The trustees did not notify participating employers of this change in advance. The participating employer ends up withdrawing on June 1, 2010 and learns of the investment return assumption change for the first time when it receives the plan's notice of withdrawal liabilty. Its withdrawal liability using the new investment return assumption is $500,000. The participating employer appealed what it describes as an unreasonable change to the assumptions adopted by the trustees, but the plan takes the position that the changes were reasonable for a variety of reasons, that the trustees had the fiduciary authority to make such a change, that such change is prudent for a variety of reasons, and that nothing in the plan documents or applicable law prohibit the change. Does anyone know what rules govern how/when the plan's trustees may adopt changes to the assumptions which underlie withdrawal liability calcs? Thanks!!!

Is there a way to file a "partial" Form 5500 for a large plan if the client is non-responsive or the auditor has not yet returned the audit?

As I understand it, the opinion needs to be attached, so is there a way around this without incurring penalties?

In the past we could just send in a paper copy without it then amend when we received the opinion from the accountant.

What is the difference between:

15 Recordkeeping and information management (computing, tabulating, data processing, etc.)

AND

64 Recordkeeping fees

Do I need both? Is one the service and the other whow they get paid for it?? Same thing for:

27 Investment advisory (plan)

AND

51 Investment management fees paid directly by plan

Does an AFN still need to be issued for a terminated plan.?

Plan terminates 12/31/2008 and IRS takes forever to approve termination, resulting in a mid 2010 payout. Must a 2009 AFN be issued (by 5500 filing date of 10/15/10)? What about next year, is a 2010 AFN needed for the final short year?

I've heard nothing but quiet Yesses on these questions. Is there any new information?

In a plan that uses the safe harbor match, does the document have to include matching on catch-up? I know that mathmatically it doesn't matter, but I think I remember that as a document requirement, safe harbor match must include catch-up contributions. Clarification is most appreciated! Thanks!!

A client has come to us with this situation:

I have an employee that was cashed out of her prior 401k plan.

It is my understanding that if she wants to rollover the funds to her current (our client's) 401k plan, she would have to make the distribution “whole”. Is this correct?

She would like to sign the check over to her current employer and pay the federal taxes that were withheld along with the distribution check. How long does she have to do this?

How do you fix the 1099 that the prior employer will generate for 2010 for a distribution, which they thought was a lump sum and is now a rollover to another qualifed plan?

Thanks for your help

I have a plan with husband/wife retired, but still owning 90%, son is only other employee, he runs the business but owns 10%. Is this considered a “one-participant” plan?? There are no employees, other than son, and he is 10% owner. No other plans either. In past we filed 5500’s – it didn’t matter per se- but now with e-FAS2 I’d rather do EZ if this meets the rule, not sure.

on the average, Yankees spent more for 9 players than Tampa did for the whole team

yet Tampa finished with a better record.

hopefully now someone will beat the evil empire!!!!!

Team 2009 2010 Average

Yankees $201,449,189 $206,333,389 $8,253,336

Red Sox $121,745,999 $162,747,333 $5,611,977

Cubs $134,809,000 $146,859,000 $5,439,222

Phillies $113,004,046 $141,927,381 $5,068,835

Mets $149,373,987 $132,701,445 $5,103,902

Tigers $115,085,145 $122,864,929 $4,550,553

White Sox $96,068,500 $108,273,197 $4,164,354

Angels $113,709,000 $105,013,667 $3,621,161

Mariners $98,904,166 $98,376,667 $3,513,452

Giants $82,616,450 $97,828,833 $3,493,887

Twins $65,299,266 $97,559,167 $3,484,256

Dodgers $100,414,592 $94.945,517 $3,651,751

Cardinals $77,605,109 $93,540,753 $3,741,630

Astros $102,996,414 $92,355,500 $3,298,411

Braves $96,726,166 $84,423,667 $3,126,802

Rockies $75,201,000 $84,227,000 $2,904,379

Orioles $67,101,666 $81,612,500 $3,138,942

Brewers $80,182,502 $81,108,279 $2,796,837

Reds $73,558,500 $72,386,544 $2,784,098

Royals $70,519,333 $72,267,710 $2,491,990

Rays $63,313,034 $71,923,471 $2,663,832

Blue Jays $80,538,300 $62,689,357 $2,089,645

Nationals $60,328,000 $61,425,000 $2,047,500

Indians $81,579,166 $61,203,967 $2,110,482

Diamondbacks $73,516,666 $60,718,167 $2,335,314

Marlins $36,834,000 $55,641,500 $2,060,796

Rangers $68,178,798 $55,250,545 $1,905,191

Athletics $62,310,000 $51,654,900 $1,666,287

Padres $43,734,200 $37,799,300 $1,453,819

Pirates $48,693,000 $34,943,000 $1,294,185

We administer a few DC plans that insist on charging terminated participants the distribution processing fee. We know this is somewhat common. Is this possible with a distribution from a defined benefit plan?

I am using IFILE to create the xml for importing into EFAST2. So far, success.

However, when the 5500 is viewed on EFAST2, the filing does not flow. In short, you would expect to see the schedules in order with the attachments following and then the complete audit report. I see no way to move the attachments around in either Relius or EFAST2.

Can anybody help????

Is there any prohibition on an adopting employer adopting a safe harbor plan when there are fewer than 3 months left in the Plan Year? The plan year IS more than 3 months...

EFAST2 passwords expire every 30 days.

This makes perfect sense because you certainly wouldn't want anyone getting into the website and stealing your life savings or using your credit card. Oh, wait, this is not a personal financial return. Never mind.

"You will be prompted to create a password. The password must be a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters, and must be re-set after 30 days." [note, you cannot reset to the same password] S.O.A.B

I would suggest MMMYYYY. E.g, OCT2010 (all caps). This seems like a good but no-good solution. First, it's not long enough. Second, you may not remember your most recent password if you log into the website sporadically. The user is almost relegated to writing the $%#@ thing down unless someone has come up with a memory algorithm they'd like to share.