Employee loses health coverage due to employer moving him to part-time (reduction in hours). At first glance, I would think that the new COBRA subsidy would apply. It is a termination from or "involuntary loss" of coverage. In a sense, they are being termed from full time employment with health coverage and moved to a PT job without. But, does this really meet the definition of "involuntary terminition of employment"? After reviewing the DOL website, I can find no support for this interpretation. Has anybody seen anything related to this?

Thanks!

We have just taken over a plan which received an IRS Notice of Overpayment for the 2008 Form 945. In review of the notice, it has come to light that the incorrect name of the entity was used on the SS-4 filed to receive a TIN. The correct EIN, Plan Name, Employer Name have been used on all other form (5500 etc.) Does anyone know the process to fix? Will a letter to the IRS indicating the name error suffice? Is there a form to use? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

What happens to the loan balance, when a participant dies? Is the loan taxable to the Estate or beneficiaries or neither?

Employee involuntarily terminates March 1. Company pays 100% of coverage for first three months of COBRA period (which runs concurrently with this three month period). How long is the employee entitled to receive the COBRA subsidy, for six months or for the full nine?

Is there a publicly available online source for 2008 Plan AFTAPs ? If so please provide the link.

This restatement period, I'm using a volume submitter with an adoption agreement instead of a prototype.

I can't find a code for this. It seems odd to me. Is there a code for Volume submitters and I just can't see it?

Are VS and prototype both 3E?

Two partners in a rate group plan. Each have Net Schedule C (after employee cost and 1/2 se tax) of 100,000.

The employees are receiving only 5% of pay profit sharing from the partnership.

Can the partners contribute and deduct more than 20% (can they borrow from EE amount under 25%) or are they stuck with 20%?

In other words, total EE pay is 100,000 but partnership is only contributing 5,000 for the employees.

Can the partners plit the other $20,000 (up to the 25% of pay limit for the EES) or are they stuck with 20% and rest of deduction is lost?

Thanks!!

Have had numerous client calls but now one who is serious, has a 401(k) plan with self direction. Participant (shareholder attorney) who wants to investment in gold coins. Would presumably obtain, put is a safe deposit box. My first thought was you cannot do this but seems upon a quick reading appears you can invest 401(k) funds in gold coins. I find no guidance or private letter rulings on the subject. Does anyone have any thoughts other than run. Thanks.

I slugging my way through my first Annual Funding Notice for a PBGC plan under 100 lives. It replaces the SAR report.

I'm using the PBGC model notice and following the instructions at the bottom of the model notice which refers me to sections under ERISA 303 for definitions of each component (e.g., plan liabilities). Reading those ERISA sections they do not refer or allow any use of prior year data for this FTAP purpose which is no surprise as even the IRS relief was not in the Code itself.

Question: Is there any ERISA/DOL relief similar to IRS relief to to use prior year data for small EOY plan valuations ? If not, I end up with a different PBGC FTAP for the same year than my funding/distribution FTAP under the IRS rules/relief.

2 different FTAPS results for the same year ???

Hi, I'm new to this forum and am trying to get clarification on the EXACT calculation of the funding ratio that triggers a Lump Sum Payout restriction in a single employer Defined Benefit Plan (with the Plan on a calander year basis). My research tells me (in the 2006 PPA) that if funding ratios are below 60%, no Lump Sum can be paid, and if the funding ratio is between 60 & 80% only 50% of the plan benefits can be paid out in a lump sum. What is not clear to me is what defines "funding ratio" for THIS purpose, and what is the valuation date for the assets & liabilities in THIS calculation.

When I look at the actuarial schedule B that accompanies the IRS 5500 filing, it appears that the funding ratio is at the BEGINNING of the plan year (for what its worth, company 10-k filings also seem to use BEGINNING of Plan year asset & liability valuation dates in the section on pension funding ratios).

Example: The IRS 5500 for "Plan Year" 2007 was filed in Sept. 2008. In this filing, the asset & liability valuation dates for the funding ratio calculation was the BEGINNING of the Plan year (1/01/07). Similarly, for plan year 2008 (with the yet to be completed 5500 filing later in 2009), I'm assuming that 1/01/08 (the BEGINNING of the 2008 Plan Year) will be the valuation date for the funding ratio calculation. If these BEGINNING of year dates are used (in the funding ratio calculation) for the purpose of Lump Sum restrictions, since the stock market didn't collapse until the 3-rd quarter of 2008, it would appear that 1/09/09 would be the FIRST time that the big stock market drop would come into play, and THIS corresponds to the Plan Year 2009 filing completed in 3-rd quarter 2010.

So here is my conumdrum .... Why am I seeing articles that say these Lump Sum restrictions are happening NOW (for 2009 payouts) if the relavent funding ratio uses a BEGINNING of year valuation date 1/01/08 (not 1/01/09) for the 2008 Plan Year and the big stock market drop would not yet be reflected?

Bottom line ..... does the big drop in the stock market in starting in the 3-rd quarter of 2008 FIRST impact funding ratios associated with 2009 or 2010 Lump Sum payouts?

Thanks for any clarification you can provide

Does the Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Dupont Savings & Investment Plan apply to church pension benefit plans as well as ERISA plans?

A PBGC covered plan (about 10 participants) terminated at the beginning of 2008 and had all assets distributed in December, 2008. Is the annual funding notice required to be prepared and distributed to participants (there are 0 participants as of 12/31/2008)? I couldn't find this answer in the instructions.

We have a client who makes a SH 3% nonelective contribution after the end of the plan year and currently owes their contribution for 2008 (they filed for an extension). This employer may either dissolve or declare bankruptcy in 2009 and they've asked if such an event would exempt them from the obligation they have to fund the 2008 SH contribution. They did not terminate the plan in 2008.

My feeling is that they are still obligated to make the 2008 contribution even in their dire situation, but wondered if someone else has a different answer to that. Thanks.

Employer currently has 25 employees 3 are HCE's.

Employer Contributions consist of a 5% SH PS, 100% up to 5% match (stated), and a 5%

fixed PS (not discretionary).

They are in the process of hiring 18 people from a rival company. (plan has 2 month wait for elig. only)

The problem is that they don't want to exclude these employees from the plan they just don't want to give them all of the benefits which is probably harder to do. They only want to give them the 5% SH PS.

I know that we might not be able to amend the plan currently because it is a SH plan, but what options do we have?

We were told we can amend the plan for next yr to exclude these employees from the stated match and fixed PS but we don't think it will pass coverage.

We were looking to create a QSLOB for these employees but I beleive that there is a 50 employee min to create a qslob.

Any suggestions will help!

Employer currently has 25 employees 3 are HCE's.

Employer Contributions consist of a 5% SH PS, 100% up to 5% match (stated), and a 5%

fixed PS (not discretionary).

They are in the process of hiring 18 people from a rival company. (plan has 2 month wait for elig. only)

The problem is that they don't want to exclude these employees from the plan they just don't want to give them all of the benefits which is probably harder to do. They only want to give them the 5% SH PS.

I know that we might not be able to amend the plan currently because it is a SH plan, but what options do we have?

We were told we can amend the plan for next yr to exclude these employees from the stated match and fixed PS but we don't think it will pass coverage.

We were looking to create a QSLOB for these employees but I beleive that there is a 50 employee min to create a qslob.

Any suggestions will help!

We are freezing benefit accruals in several cash balance plans. Notices and amendments will be timely, but the question regards the language for the amendment. We have used the following:

"Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary and unless further amended, no benefits shall accrue under the Plan after _________."

Should we elaborate and provide that for purposes of benefit accrual, the counting of Hours of Service shall cease? What has been your experience with the wording of the amendment?

Thanks.

Hi - I wasn't sure where to post this question. Is there a better place to go to for questions regarding FMLA and MMLA?

Here is my question.

If we have someone going out on FMLA and there is a holiday coming up, how does that count towards the leave? For example, we are a Jewish institution and are closed for a 2 week period for Passover starting next Monday. We have someone going on FMLA leave sometime this week. How do we count the holiday time? Is it included as part of the alloted time off, but it is paid because we pay for holidays? Or is it not counted at all as a part of leave meaning that she can use an additional 2 weeks of leave after the holiday break?

Any other helpful tips would be much appreciated as we are new at this FMLA thing.

Thanks!

So if we distribute the new annual funding notice for 2008 timely (by April 30th, since it's a calendar year plan), what do we do if we elect to change the actuarial assumptions for 2008 and re-do the 2008 annual valuation after April 30th? Do we do a revised annual funding notice? Or are we considered "late" since the final information was not included in the April 30th notice? Any ideas?

Maybe I missed it, but I was wondering if there is a forum here for exchanging information on job opportunities. I actually have an available Retirement Plan Administration position available in my Firm (Long Island, NY) that I am looking to fill. I usually post on Craigslist and monster.com but figured I would look within our own industry first. Any suggestions on where to post the details?

I've just started a new job and my first project is creating or updating SPDs for all of the benefit plans.

One of the SPDs I'm working on is for a defined benefit pension plan. Over the years, this plan has had different plant sites or divisions that participated in it, and other pension plans were combined into it. Each group apparently had differing benefit formulas. Over time, most these sites/divisions either closed or were sold. Right now only one site actively participates (still accrues a benefit). The only remaining participants in the plan are from this one active division, or vested terms/in-pay status retirees from the former locations/divisions.

To keep it clean, I was going to do one SPD for the active group.

For the others, I wanted to somehow combine them into a single spd. However, I cannot locate documentation that indicates what all the differing benefit formulas were over time, and I cannot find the details on how certain sites came to no longer be part of the plan (did they close or were they sold, or whatever). I can't really even determine how many different sites were once in this plan. I only have the most recent plan doc restatement, which only shows 2 groups in it, but I know from the current third-party administrator, that there were once many other groups. I can't locate a copy of the prior plan doc.

the 3-rd party administrator has only had the plan for a few years, so isn't really a source for history. The former administrator before that is no longer in business.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to approach this? Has anyone ever done an SPD for just vested terms and retirees and if so, would the requirements be different? Would I need to describe the varying formulas involved for each of the one time participants in the plan?