I recently started a new job and noticed that our self-insured medical plan excludes coverage for pregnant dependents. I have never seen this and have understood that would be discriminatory. Does anyone have a comment, experience, etc. with this provision. Thanks.

We have a client that started a new Plan as of 1/1/08, they have a new Plan Sponsor, EIN and Plan name. The Document states that all money was to be transferred from their existing Plan. The old existing Plan under a different EIN should have terminated and transferred the assets over to the new Plan. This never happened. Can I file a form 5500 for the new Plan with $0 assets? Any other suggestions? Assets will be transferred this year.

TPA is a COBRA administrator and keeps track of coverage dates and approves/denies claims. TPA mistakenly let a COBRA beneficiary continue coverage for longer than the COBRA allotted time. Plan had to overpay and sues TPA for reimbursement of overpaid medical bills -- in contract.

1) Is this contract claim pre-empted by ERISA?

2) If so, is the TPA a fiduciary for purposes of the claims issue such that it can be sued on amended ERISA complaint?

I would appreciate your position (and supporting citations).

Plan docs do not exclude bonuses from definition of compensation. Deferrals and SH were based on compensation that excluded bonuses, some of them quite substantial.

Can this be "fixed" according to the "missed deferral opportunity" rules? And if so, how must the lost earnings be calculated? Any citations?

And can Employer simply contribute the lost deferrals and match without submission through one of the compliance programs?

Thanks for help.

a 401(k) is in the process of being restated for EGTRRA and one question the AA has is regarding to protected benefits. It asks...."The following are Code Sec 411(d)(6) protected benefits that are preserved under this plan:____________(specify the protected benefits and the accrued benefits that are subject to the protected benefits).

Well it would seem the plan would retain all the protected benefits that were in the plan prior to restatement. I am a bit confused as to what should be in that space. There has been nothing that reduces accrued benefits (i.e. vesting, etc) You could possibly put a too much in that space (or perhaps not enough). The plan does not have early retirement or optional forms of benefit. Would someone give an example of what could be specified in that space.

How can I find copies of these revenue rulings. I have tried to serach with no sucess.

Any comments are appreciated:

A C-Corp has no employees, only the owner. She maintained a SIMPLE (assumed to be SIMPLE IRA) through 2008. She now wants to do a SEP in 2009. The company will cease to be in existence after 6/30/09.

(1) I don't see a problem starting a SEP since she is not funding the SIMPLE in 2009 or later

(2) Is there a permanence problem with her starting a new plan in 2009 and having it only be around for 6 months?

(3) Her comp for 2009 will be around $150,000. Can she put in 25% of $150,000, or is the comp. limit pro-rated to $122,500, meaning she can only put in up to 25% of $122,500.

Thanks

Say a small defined benefit or defined contribution plan (less than 15 participants) wants to make a plan amendment.

While conceptually and operationally such a change is straight forward I want to discuss paperwork logistics.

My belief is to keep things simple and that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

For purposes of this thread let's ignore the participant notices 204h, etc. I just want to focus on the plan itself.

With that said, to make a plan change is it satisfactory to prepare a written consent by the Board that also satisfies a resolution and provide that with the plan amendment (both for signature)?

And finally, is there specific language that must be included in the consent and amendment, in addition to the actual substance of the plan change? I would think that there is not a precise way that this be done as long it accomplishes a few basic things.

Curious to get comments, with the goal of keep it simple.

Thank you.

Employee with 7 years of service incurs 5 consecutive breaks and then gets rehired. Document uses rule of parity. Is that person forever grandfathered in to vesting and eligiblity, or will it at some point be disregarded?

Assume a church plan is not subject to ERISA and the church amends the plan to increase the normal retirement age and decrease the accrued benefit. On what basis could a participant who has reached normal retirement age argue that his/her benefit could not be reduced. I've read that the anti-cutback rules of Code Section 411(d)(6) do not apply to Church Plans per 411(e)(1).

It appears that any cause of action would have to be found in (i) the Plan document, (ii) state law or (iii) church law.

If the Plan document reserves the right to amend the plan unilaterly and without regard to whether it reduces a participant's accrued benefit, then item (i) is out.

Item (ii) seems like it would have to be like a promissory estoppel basis, that the participant did everything he was asked to do and was promised a certain benefit in return.

Any thoughts on how to argue this amendment would not apply to a participant who reached normal retirement?

I am relatively inexperienced in the benefits area and I'm hoping someone here can help educate me on this specific scenario.

If Mr. Smith owns 80% of a publicly traded company, owns 100% of a not for profit organization, and owns 100% of a privately held company, does this form a controlled group? The entities are in seperate lines of business and do not transact with one another.

It doesnt seem right that they would be in a controlle group, but I can't find the legal provision that would expempt them from the 80% rule. Then again, I am a newb to this area.

Another scenario....A holding company with 3 subsidiaries. Holding is a US publicly traded company, the 3 subsidiaries are in US, Japan & UK. No one is on the payroll for the holding company, hence no benefit or retirement/pension plan. Is it technically correct to say that there is controlled group here? Also, do the rules for a controlled group go beyond US borders?

Thanks for any help provided.

Say a small defined benefit or defined contribution plan (less than 15 participants) wants to make a plan amendment.

While conceptually and operationally such a change is straight forward I want to discuss paperwork logistics.

My belief is to keep things simple and that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

For purposes of this thread let's ignore the participant notices 204h, etc. I just want to focus on the plan itself.

With that said, to make a plan change is it satisfactory to prepare a written consent by the Board that also satisfies a resolution and provide that with the plan amendment (both for signature)?

And finally, is there specific language that must be included in the consent and amendment, in addition to the actual substance of the plan change? I would think that there is not a precise way that this be done as long it accomplishes a few basic things.

Curious to get comments, with the goal of keep it simple.

Thank you.

I am relatively inexperienced in the benefits area and I'm hoping someone here can help educate me on this specific scenario.

If Mr. Smith owns 80% of a publicly traded company, owns 100% of a not for profit organization, and owns 100% of a privately held company, does this form a controlled group? The entities are in seperate lines of business and do not transact with one another.

It doesnt seem right that they would be in a controlle group, but I can't find the legal provision that would expempt them from the 80% rule. Then again, I am a newb to this area.

Another scenario....A holding company with 3 subsidiaries. Holding is a US publicly traded company, the 3 subsidiaries are in US, Japan & UK. No one is on the payroll for the holding company, hence no benefit or retirement/pension plan. Is it technically correct to say that there is controlled group here? Also, do the rules for a controlled group go beyond US borders?

Thanks for any help provided.

I have this plan that we took over for another TPA and I only have the VS doc that they adopted late in 2005. The old TPA would have been required to amend for Final regs and for the 2006 cumlative changes, and possibly for a change in the classes, as the 2007 annaul valuation has 7 classes when the doc I have has 4. I have just emailed the old TPA for this info (and clarification on some other things), but I had a thought that I wanted to post here for other options.

The client says they can't find or don't have anything else (not everyone is organized they are just trying to run their business....). Let's say the TPA did amend the plan for the required amendments, but would charge a fee to resend them (we would). If the client doesn't want to pay, where do I go from here? We need to restate their document, and will include the items I mentioned above (classes are a seperate issue), but if they were audited, what would the IRS think? We would run with the asumption that these were done previously, but we couldn't prove it.

The plan sponsor is going to have to get me something on the classes. But again, I don't know where to go from here if they don't.....

It's like pulling teeth to get info from this client...

Thansk for your thoughts...

I plan to amend to eliminate an excluded class which will allow me to pass coverage. It's just deferral and safe harbor match, both coverage tests fail equally. How do I handle the Safe Harbor match? For the 401(k) piece, the client will be making a QNEC equal to the average deferral percentage for the NHCE's to each NHCE that is brought in. Do I apply the same principle to the safe harbor match by taking the average match percentage for the NHCE's? Does this take me out of the free pass on the top heavy status as well as (k) and (m) testing?

These things get complicated!

Where is there mention of the 30-day wait period for distributions, and that people can waive it and get their distributions sooner?

Employee gets divorced while working for a company. At that time an order is entered stating that employee must pay child support and enroll dependent child in employee's health plan, which presumably the employee does at the company.

Employee leaves employment and goes to work for another employer and enrolls (through cafeteria plan) employee's child in plan as a part of initial enrollment.

Sometime later, employee gets revised order stating that dependent original order is vacated (because the child is emancipated), therefore, employee does not have to pay support or carry dependent on health plan. Dependent is has been added to former spouse's plan although the revised order does not require it (it is silent on issue). Not sure how child was added but assume that the child was added in an open enrollment period held in late 2008 for the 2009 plan year.

Can employee change employee's cafeteria plan election to remove dependent's coverage mid-year?

Thanks for any thoughts.

The revised Schedule SB has modified the disclaimer under the EA's signature:

1. [ ] If the actuary has not fully reflected any regulation or ruling promulgated under the statute in completing this schedule, check the box and see instructions.

2. [ ] If the actuary has no idea whether he has failed to fully reflect any regulation or ruling promulgated under the statute in completing this schedule, check the box and join the crowd.

I hate to revisit this topic, but i'm still not sure which way to go with this. It seems the concensus of this board is that if for a 2008 calendar plan year with quarterly conbtribution requirements, a credit balance election is made in April of 2009 to apply the entire 2008 funding requirement and no cash contributions are made, the funding requirement is met and there is no penalty discount for late quarterly contributions since any credit balance in essence applies the credit balance as of 1/1/08.

However, it seems to me that the proposed regs say that the quarterly contribution is deemed satisfied on the date the credit balance election is made, and if late, a penalty discount would apply.

I also realize that final regs may confirm the concensus of the board, but until then is there any cite or publication that is being relied upon to support the concensus?

Thanks.

Suppose you have a small DB and 401(k).

The employer would like to have a higher benefit for certain HCE's in the DB (say 6% of pay per yr) and provide 2% of pay to all others. In the 401(k) they will provide 7.5% of salary employer contributions every year.

Could the 2% of pay benefit each year be used to meet part of the 7.5% gateway in the 401(k) plan?