Are Health and Welfare Plans required to file IRS Form 5500? What are the parameters that require them to, or not to file?

Spouse A is a physician, is in private practice which has a safe harbor 401(k). Spouse B is a physician, is in private practice, and has a cash balance plan. Spouse A and B jointly own a third business, 50/50, a healthclub, which is covered by Spouse A's safe harbor 401(k). Is there a controlled group issue with regard to the health club? Is it required to have a cah balance plan equal to Spouse B's plan?

I use CCH Prosystem-Fx to prepare income tax returns and a few 5500s. CCH will be the "Transmitter" of the 5500s that I prepare.

I just received written authorization from plan's sponsor, giving me permission to electronically sign & file the 2009 Form 5500 on its behalf.

Now I'm ready to go to EFAST2 online and register for PIN & ID numbers.

Am I supposed to obtain a PIN & ID as "filing Author" and also a separate PIN & ID as "filing Signer" ?

What name (my name or employer/sponsor name?) am I supposed to register the "filing Signer" PIN & ID under ?

I am looking for clarification on what to include on Line 8F of 5500-SF. Please help.

Specificailly wondering about:

-direct payments (checks written from company's checking account to the TPA)??

-revenue sharing payments sent to the TPA from the fund company??

-any broker compensation (paid by the fund company)??

Please help!

I seem to recall that there was some guidance, probably informal, where IRS representatives indicated it would be permissible for a participant to redefer only part of a scheduled payment. For example, let's say the participant is scheduled to receive the balance of an account in a lump sum in 2012. The participant wants to receive one-half of the amount scheduled for payment, and redefer the other half until 2017 or beyond.

Does anyone recall seeing anything on this? Or have any thoughts?

New Client for us in 2009 has been allowing all employees into the plan effective first of month following employment. This was just discovered when completing testing work. How do we handle? Can we provide a retro-active amendment to fix. The document indicated age 21 and 1 year of service.

Thanks for your thoughts.

We have a 'new' client. The company is an S-corp. The owner receives a w-2 and a k-1. The prior TPA used both the owner's w-2 pay and k-1 earned income as his 'compensation' for testing purposes, limits, contributions, etc.

I always thought that for a s-corp, the definition of compensation could only be w-2 comp. Am I missing something? Can anyone provide some guidance?

Thanks.

Sort of a survey of opinions and/experiences here.

Generally, pre-approved plans are no longer required to obtain determination letters. My question is this: what has been your experience when plan termination rolls around? What I'm really trying to get at is this: if you do a formal plan termination, the IRS reviewer is wanting to see plan documents and amendments all the way back to the year one.

What's your experience if the plan DID apply for (and receive) a D-letter for, say, GUST? When you do a plan termination now, are they only requiring docs/amendments POST D-letter, or are they still going back beyond that? Assuming the former, then it seems like not obtaining a D-letter just postpones the problem and increases difficulty, so that going back to the old practice of requiring a D-letter for all plans might save some agony in the long run. (Of course on a side note, requiring terminating plans to be currently updated for all interim law changes is stupid beyond belief, since operational compliance is always required regardless, and substantially contributes to the difficulty, but that's a gripe for another time.)

Would be interested in your thoughts on ths issue.

I have been in business for the last 28 years, have acquired some plans, and have lost some plans. We all have. Clients move their plan investments all the time.

Usually a TPA loses a client because the client is either unhappy with the way the TPA has been handling the business or because of fees.

However, over the last six months, I have lost 3 clients for neither of these reasons- these employers were approached by John Hancock agents to move the investments from wherever they were to Hancock and/or Hancock related products.

Nothing in and of itself wrong with that. It's just that most reps will ask the employer if they are happy with the TPA services --= these people do not even ask, they sell a bundled product, "go with Hancock and, oh by the way, you have to use our TPA."

I got a little suspicious after I lost the first case, but this looks like a pattern. I complained bitterly to one of the regional marketing reps for my area when I lost my third case. He did not see anything ethically wrong with this business practice.

Hancock seems to be the only company that condones such practices.

I am wondering if anyone else is or has been in the same situation.

We've been having a discussion in our Benefits Department about this topic and I would love to get some outside input.

We offer our employees six supplemental policies through Allstate. Three are offered through our S125 plan (Cancer, Supplemental Health Options, and Heart/Stroke) and three are not (STD, Accident and Universal Life). Employees can enroll in or drop any of the six at hire and during Open Enrollment.

Our discussion and questions surround the three plans that are offered outside of the S125 plan. Since they are offered outside of the S125 plan, is it permissible to allow employees to enroll in or drop coverage outside of OE -- at any time during the year? We don't have any written policy/procedures on this; it has just always been done that way.

How do other companies treat these benefits?

Thank you for sharing your opinions and expertise.

Wekiva

We have a plan sponsor (one participant plan) that has never filed a Form 5500-EZ since the plan's inception in 1989. We've contacted an ERISA attorney for assistance and (s)he instructed us to go back in time as far as we can and prepare the delinquent EZ filings for submission to the IRS. We now are in the process of preparing the EZ's for plan years 1999 - 2008 (brokerage statements prior to 1999 aren't available so we can't do them); however we don't have all of these tax years available on our government forms software (we have 2004 to the current year form). Should we complete the 1999 - 2003 EZ's on a 2004 form, and then each year after that on the correct year's form or should we complete all delinquent years on a more current year form, or? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

(Only) one of four Directors of a Company will benefit under a top-hat plan being newly adopted. (An additional employee - not a director, will also benefit).

Any problem with having the benefitting director sign the plan adoption resolution (as a director) or should he 'recuse' himself for this particular resolution?

This relates to a privately-held company.

Client sponsors a safe-harbor 401(k) plan (using the 3% employer non-elective). The Plan has an end-of-year employment requirement to receive the "discretionary" employer contribution.

Owner would like to pre-fund some of the employer contribution for the year. Actually, he'd like to make his entire salary deferral contribution and pre-fund his entire employer contribution.

I am certainly comfortable with his pre-funding the 3% safe-harbor for all participants based on participant comp to date, since there is no service or EOY requirement to receive same. He obviously can't pre-fund any of the staff participants' "discretionary" contribution, as he won't know until December 31st who's still employed and eligible for same. Curious, though, whether his pre-funding his entire discretionary contribution would be considered blatantly/possibly discriminatory?

Thanks for any and all input.

We have a correction in EPCRS for failing to provide a participant the opportunity to defer. Does anyone know where I can find guidance on when this failure has occurred. I am not aware of specific requirements for a non-safe harbor plan to provide notices other than the SPD (and that can happen after the employee is eligible, right?), am I missing something? Are we left to facts and circumstances?

This concerns a situation where a plan's FTAP is between 96% and 99.9%.

Presumably, the following three statements are all true with respect to 2010 plan years (assume that the plan was in existence before 2007 and not subject to the Deficit Reduction Contribution requirements in 2007):

1. If the plan's assets, net only of PFB, are at least as great as the Funding Target, then any existing shortfall bases are eliminated and none are started, without regard to the relationship between assets - PFB - COB and the Funding Target.

2. If the plan's assets, net only of PFB, are below 96% of the Funding Target, then you establish a new shortfall base as usual in 2010 (using assets - COB - PFB vs 96% of Funding Target, net of discounted value of remaining prior shortfall amortization amounts, which in most instances in 2010 will mean an offsetting, negative new base thanks to the generally high investment yields for 2009).

3. If the plan's assets, net only of PFB, are at least as great as 96% of the Funding Target and there were no shortfall bases last year, then, irrespective of the COB, there are no shortfall bases this year.

Question: If there was at least one shortfall amortization base last year and this year's assets, net only of PFB, are at least 96% of the Funding Target but not 100%, is there any doubt that you can establish a new, partially offsetting shortfall base this year (assuming that plan experience in 2009 was favorable)?

I have heard it said that if the plan falls between 96% and 99%, then PPA says you do not establish a new shortfall base (but one is not at liberty to eliminate prior shortfall bases). Note that under such an interpretation, one could easily encounter a situation (especially with recent ifavorable nvestment performance) where a plan that is 95% funded could easily have a lower minimum required contribution than an otherwise identical plan that is 96% funded. How could that ever legitimately be the case?

I am hoping not to have to put a support ticket in for this since they are so backlogged. Has anyone else figured out how to add a Preparer to Web Client? The process should be easy, however I am realizing that my "playing around" in the system in the past has now created problems. In order to test things out and see how emails would look as if we were the client, etc I set up a few email addresses in the office as clients - now I need them to be preparers and I have no clue how to delete them as clients and make them preparers!!!! Is this even possible? We're really hosed if it isn't possible.....

Anyone have any suggestions?

My client has an employee in bankruptcy who is considering a hardship withdrawal.

His attorney told him his distribution would be exempt from any action taken by the Court as the funds are not considered wages. In other words, would he be required to disclose to the Bankruptcy Court his intent to take a hardship withdrawal? Would the Bankruptcy Court have a "claim or levy" on any funds disbursed from his retirement account?

One of the ABC Company's attorneys thought he would have to obtain approval from the Bankruptcy Court to request the hardship.

ABC Company has an employee in bankruptcy who is considering a hardship withdrawal.

His attorney told him his distribution would be exempt from any action taken by the Court as the funds are not considered wages. In other words, would he be required to disclose to the Bankruptcy Court his intent to take a hardship withdrawal? Would the Bankruptcy Court have a "claim or levy" on any funds disbursed from his retirement account?

A 6 person plan has filed for a standard termination with the PBGC. The owner is going to waive benefits to the extent necessary. The owner does not want to wait 60 days before distributing benefits, but would like to do so immediately.

While the PBGC Form 500 Schedule EA-S requires a proposed distribution date not earlier than the 61st day after filing the Form 500, is there any restriction on the earliest date that benefits can actually be distributed?

Let's assume a deferral-only plan satisfies all of the requirements to be considered exempt from ERISA.

If they decide to allow participant loans for specific purposes, such as medical reasons, can they still be a non-ERISA plan?

If so, what should they be careful to do (or not to do) so they are not considered to be "maintaining a plan"?