I have a controlled group that has had two of the companies fold due to the economy.

I still have a few people that have not taken their distribution yet and they are over $5000.

When do I remove the controlled group member from the plan document as a participating employer?

The companies themselves will be shut down soon now that the rest of the people have just been let go.

Suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

Pat

A plan sponsor is a closely held owner of a business with say 10 employees.

He has a defined benefit plan and a cross tested 401k profit sharing plan that provides a separate rate group for each participant.

When amending the defined benefit plan is a resolution required as well, authorizing the amendment? I don't always no or see th point of a resolution, especially with a closely held business. The plan document does not make mention of a resolution needed in its plan amendment provisions.

Now for the 401k plan.

After the year is over the owner decides on the percentage allocation for each participant. To document this, is an amendment required? A resolution required instead? Or both? It would just state the amounts provided to each employee for the specific plan year.

Thank you.

If a change from accrual to cash method of accounting is desired for the Form 5500, is it necessary to file IRS Form 3115 to obtain IRS approval to make the change?

I am wondering if there has been discussion on how organ transplants will be viewed under the annual limits requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Specifically, will organ transplants be considered an essential or a nonessential benefit? Any thoughts or discussion on this is appreciated.

In order to not violate universal availability, does anyone believe that a 403b plan cannot therefore allow exclusions from compensation for deferral purposes - i.e. exclude bonuses or commissions from deferrals? As long as the plan is offered to you, does not matter that a portion of your pay is not eligible?

We are using Relius WebClient to upload our Form 5500's and attachments to our clients. When they are clicking on E-File they receive a message that there is a schema error and that their filing will be rejected.

There are no other notes/warnings associated with this plan and nothing in the help menu on schema. Is anyone else receiving this error? Any ideas on what may cause the error?

I know of an unsophisticated fiduciary thought it was OK to borrow some money from its own ERISA plan, to keep the company viable. He now has the money to pay it back with lost earnings. He obviously didn't know about 18 U.S.C. § 664 and that it is not OK even if you think you are just borrowing the money, not intending on keeping it. Conversion, embezzlement -- has been perfected, basically. While there is no excuse and this is serious, you know that many unsophisticated plan sponsors justify their use of plan assets with the "keep the business afloat, I am doing this for everyone's sake not just mine" rationale.

Is there some kind of DOL or IRS amnesty program that would work? I know the DOL has the VFCP and could this be finessed under the "below market interest transaction with a party in interest" listed transaction? Any ideas would be welcomed. Thank you.

A client has 8 different companies comprising of a controlled group. Each company has a separate profit sharing plan, that is, a 401(k) plan without deferrals or matches but with a non-elective employer contribution. The non-elective is given to everyone over 21 and 1 who has worked 1,000 hours and is there on the last day of the year. However, the non-elective is different for each company, a few have 5%, a few have 7.5% and the rest have 10%.

The client's attorney says that since it is a controlled group and they need to perform coverage testing together, that they will also need to perform the General test because of the different levels of contribution. At first thought, I don't agree with the attorney, but want to know if I'm missing something. Each company can pass the coverage test (only 1 company/plan has HCEs/Owners, but it also has NHCEs) on its own, and since they can be disaggregated for coverage testing, wouldn't the employer contribution be regarded as a safe harbor? and the General test not be necessary?

Any insight would be helpful, thanks in advance.

Instructions read you must check “Yes” if any benefits due under the plan were not timely paid or not paid in full. Would this include mandatory distributions not made timely, what is considered timely and would this be a red flag? Any guidance or interpretation of this would be greatly appreciated.

Has anyone heard that the DOL will NOT be providing an automatic extension? I know that a big trade group had pleaded for an extension, but of course nothing yet and the clock is ticking...

terminating single participant plan has a whole life equitable policy with a face of $52,800 and a CSV of $30,000.

The policy could be rolled over to an IRA, correct? They would just restyle the name of the policy and change the beneficiary on record. The participant is in poor health.

ER decided to waive service requirements for a new hire and let them defer and receive ER contributions upon hire date (document has YOS and 21 for ER and EE). I know we can FF the contributions and make the EE whole through payroll. How does the retroactive amendment work? That is what is the process, do you need to go through VCP or ??

Also, does the amendment specifically name the person or is the amedment on a plan level, which may let others in as well?

Thanks!

Is so, what has been your experience? Do you know of anyone who currently runs this software? If you have converted off of a Gensys product, what was the replacement product?

Thanks!

We are a small company and have a single actuary. He may semi-retire soon and will still review and sign my actuarial work as I am not enrolled. However, I am trying to set up a contingency plan for when (hopefully for him) he wins the lottery and moves to the tropical island of his choice. I want to speak to other actuaries (with my current actuaries' blessing) about fees and processes so I have a succession plan in place as well as an idea of the costs. I've been doing Defined Benefit work for over 20 years now using Relius administration and my current actuary is available to discuss my proficiencies. I should be clear that I am not looking to farm out the Defined Benefit work nor to hire an actuary (we don't have enought DB work for the latter). What I am looking for is have an informal agreement with someone to review my work and certify the Schedule B's that I prepare at some time in the future.

I understand that we do not discuss pricing on this venue. I'm curious what other small firms do for their contingency planning and am inviting any actuary who might do this kind of work (is there a name for it?) to send me a private email. Hopefully that's OK.

Thank you.

opps I forgot sdott@northeastprofessional.com

We administer a 401(k) plan that was effective 1/1/2006. Not knowing at the time, we filed using an incorrect EIN for the 2006 - 2008 plan years. We've just tried to file the 2009 return electronically but it got kicked back because the first two digits of the EIN happen to be prohibited digits. We were hoping that, rather than going back and amend 2006, 2007 and 2008, we could simply instead input in the 2009 filing that the EIN has changed and fill out section 4 with the prior (incorrect) information; however the electronic filing system won't accept the incorrect number in section 4, either.

Would it be worth a shot to transmit the 2009 Form 5500 using the correct EIN and then just wait for the government to send letters....or should we just take the time now and amend? Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Under the DOL's new procedures that allow the TPA's to sign the 5500 on their behalf (i.e., they fax us the manually signed copy, etc), how are you completing the signature line? Are you leaving the actual plan administrators name, and then entering the TPA credentials (which obviously don't match the name), or are you entering the TPA credentials AND the corresponding TPA name as plan administrator?

As far as I can tell, this is not addressed anywhere...

I received a P-215 EFAST2 error. This is a health and welfare plan that is funded out of employer assets. The plan terminated (the final return box was checked) and the final participant count was 0. EFAST2 is generating an error saying,

"Warning: Form 5500, Line B (Final Return/Report) is checked, however the criteria for termination have not been met. Review the instructions for filing a final return."

There are no other schedules included in the filing. Does anyone have a clue why I am receiving this warning. The filing software did not display any errors/warnings prior to the submission.

We have a client that is an 80% owner of another company (the company was acquired in mid 2007). The two companies have separate plans. For plan years 2007 and 2008 no combined testing is needed because of the transition rule but for 2009 we must combine the two plans and test for coverage. The problem is that the two plans have different eligible requirements and different employer contributions. Our client eligibility is age 21 and 3 months of service while the other plan's eligibility is age 18 and one year of service. Also, our client's plan has a 3% Safe Harbor Non-Elective while the other plan has a matching contribution of 50% up to 3% of compensation. My question is for combined testing purposes which eligibility requirements should be used?

An employer thought he could apply the plan's 2 year waiting period for PS contributions to safe harbor contributions. Several years went by before the waiting period error was discovered. The ER is willing to go back some number of years, but we're wondering if a statute of limitations might apply. Documentation to determine when, who, how much, etc. probably isn't available going back more than 3 years.

Below is the validation error report on a 2009 SB that we consider correct and final (sorry I lost the column formatting). The items in bold (my emphasis) are of concern to us.

Questions:

1. Do all validation "errors" result in filing rejections?

2. Anybody else having a problem with #14? Our entry is correct but we cannot get rid of the validation error.

3. Are the other messages harmless?

Any help/comments on these items would be appreciated.

Form Rpt Pg# Rec# Fld# On/Near Line# Message

2009 5500 Sch. SB 42 6 Warning - (DOL I-155SB) The

Actuary (Name), Firm Name

and Signature Date must be

provided on Schedule SB.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 43 6 Warning - (DOL I-158SB) A

copy of the signed Schedule

SB must be attached in PDF

format when a Schedule SB is

provided.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 82 14 Warning - (DOL B-686SB)

Line 14 must equal Line 2(b)

minus the sum of Lines 13(a)

and 13(b) divided by Line

3(d)(2) when Line 4 is not

checked.2009 5500 Sch. SB 165 22 Warning - (DOL B-691SB) The

Weighted Average Retirement

Age needs to be attached

when line 22 has a value.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 169 24 Warning - (DOL I-127SB) The

'Non Prescribed Actuarial

Assumption' needs to be

attached when Line 24 is

marked Yes.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 171 25 Warning - (DOL I-128SB) The

'Method Change' attachment

needs to be attached when

Line 25 is marked Yes.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 173 26 Error - (DOL I-120SB) The

Schedule of Active Participant

Data must be attached when

Line 26 is marked Yes.

2009 5500 Sch. SB 180 32a Error - (DOL I-132SB) The

'Schedule of Shortfall

Amortization Bases' needs to

be attached when Lines 32a or

32b has a value greater than 0.

< 8 > validation errors/warnings were reported