If you mail in the 5300 before the 10 day period ends, what's the best way to confix the problem. Call and ask the Form 5300 not to be filed until the 10 days is up? Thanks for the help.

FYI

As you are considering a dependent eligibility audit and student verification processes for this year, make sure and pay attention to existing state law and the new legislation called "Michelle's Law". “Michelle’s Law” will go into effect in October of 2009. This law prevents a group health plan from removing coverage from a “dependent child” due to a “medically necessary leave of absence” before the earlier of: (1) one year after the first day of the medically necessary leave of absence; or (2) the date on which the coverage under the plan would otherwise terminate.

You can read more about it here: Michelle's Law: A New Consideration for Dependent Audits

I have a participant who currently has 2 outstanding loans and the plan does not allow for a third nor would he qualify if the plan did allow. He does qualify for a hardship and his "need" exceeds the balance in his account. He has also deferred more than is currently in his account so he would in theroy be able to take 100% of his account balance. I wasn't able to find anything in the plan document addressing this issue but it seems odd to me that he could wipe his account out yet still have 2 outstanding loans. Would we also have to consider the loans as defaulted or could he continue to repay them? And can he really take 100% of his account balance since then there would be nothing securing the 2 outstanding loans??? (The trustee doesn't want to get into using outside assets to secure the loan). Thx

A plan is being terminated and payments are being accelerated under 1.409A-3(j)(4)(ix)©. That section generally prohibits payments within 12 months of the plan's termination, but requires all payments to be made within 24 months of the termination. Does the termination amendment need to spell out specific payment terms within that 12 month period? In other words, should the amendment say that payments to participants will be made in a lump sum on date "X" (for example)? Could we simply include a provision that mirrors that in the regs saying payments will be made no sooner than 12 months and no later than 24 months after termination and leave it up to the employer to decide how and when to make payments within that time period?

We have a plan that was terminated at the end of 2007, and a number of annuity contracts were purchased at that time for the distribution of plan benefits. The annuity starting dates of these contracts have not yet passed and benefit payments have not begun. Accordingly, are these contracts subject to the new QOSA requirements of I.R.C. 417 (75% J&S optional form), which are applicable to distributions from a plan that is subject to I.R.C. 401(a)(11) with annuity starting dates in plan years beginning after December 31, 2007? Is the plan (although long since terminated) responsible for amending the contracts to offer the QOSA option?

Client's 401(k) excludes bonuses from the definition of compensation, and because the usually HCEs get larger (percentage-wise) bonuses than NHCEs, there is not a problem with a discriminatory definition of compensation. However, a couple of years ago, because of a downturn in business, the client did not pay bonuses to the HCEs, but paid the NHCEs as usual. So it looks like the definition of compensation for this year is discriminatory because now "compensation" for HCEs = total compensation, whereas "compensation" for NHCEs is less than 100% of total comp. The client does not match or otherwise make nonelective contributions.

Has anyone come across this type of situation? Any ideas of how to correct it?

In preparing the Section 402(k) compensation of non-employee directors, is it necessary to include disclosure of directors who departed in the previous fiscal year? How about directors who departed after the end of the fiscal year but before the date of the proxy statement?

The reg and instructions don't seem to address this.

We recently established an ERISA 403B plan. We also have a 401-K plan. My question is this: Do contributions to the 403b by HCE need to be considered in 401K ADP/ACP testing? We have HCE's contributing to both plans, receiving a company match in the 401K up to the company limit for match and then contributing additional pretax contributions to the 403b to reach their annual limits of $16,500 plus $5,500 catch-up if eligible.

We have an employer who has indicated that they will pay us "net 120." This is an ERISA plan, can they do this if participant contributions are used to pay for the benefit? Or would this be in violation of ERISA/fiduciary duties?

This may seem like a silly question, but we have a differing opinion here in our office. If a DC plan is on a Hancock (example) platform, where part's get statements and instant access to their accounts; our firm is calculating er contributions (annually or quarterly, as case may be); are we to also provide a year end accrual-based report?? I have several new clients that fit this description, and some in our office wish to prepare this report (thus combining the at-market value PLUS accruals), and some say they have access to cash-basis reporting all the time, why should we charge the client more? We do all the testing and calculating of contributions.

Thanks!!

We recently established an ERISA 403B plan. We also have a 401-K plan. My question is this: Do contributions to the 403b by HCE need to be considered in 401K ADP/ACP testing? We have HCE's contributing to both plans, receiving a company match in the 401K up to the company limit for match and then contributing additional pretax contributions to the 403b to reach their annual limits of $16,500 plus $5,500 catch-up if eligible.

I am confused: New rules for 2008 returns say that they are taxed in year distributed.

2008 1099R instructions p. 5 talk about excess aggregate (for example) contributions say taxed when contribution is made.

Page 4 of the 1099R 2008 instructions say corrective distributions are taxed in year made.

What am I missing? HELP!!

Thanks!

Can someone shed some light on how to calculate an EBAR for a participant over the Age of 65?

I am using a On Line Software Program called "Pensions On Line" and I do not think it is calculating it correctly for this participant who is over age 50.

I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a mess. During open enrollment last fall, I enrolled in my company's new HDHP with an HSA, the first time I'd enrolled in an HSA. Reading through all of the literature they provided, it stated that an individual could not enroll in an HSA AND a general-use FSA. It did not say anything about a spouse not being able to contribute to an FSA. Maybe I should have intuited it, but I didn't. My husband enrolled in his company's PPO with an FSA. In conversation with a colleague last week, I heard for the first time that I could not have an HSA while my spouse has an FSA. (This wasn't mentioned in any of the enrollment materials or webinars or WBTs I read/attended/completed, which is a bit beside the point but really infuriates me.)

My contributions to the HSA are $3000 for the year, the individual max; my husband's to his FSA are $1200. We did this to cover expenses for both of us, since my HSA can't be used for his expenses since he's not on my plan. Had I known we couldn't have both, I would have opted out of the HSA and funded his FSA up to around $3000 total.

So now I'm not sure what to do. A tax person I know says to call my HR Dept and have them back me out of the HSA, since technically they should not have allowed me to enroll. I'm sure they'll do that in the interest of saving their own skin. What's giving me anxiety (and I'm having a lot of it right now) is that doing so will leave us with only $1200 in the FSA, which doesn't even touch my $1500 deductible, and I'm sure my husband's employer won't let him increase his contributions since it's well past open enrollment. All of this meaning that if I back out of the HSA I need to avoid going to the dr at all costs or be stuck with a hefty bill to foot out-of-pocket.

Do I have any other options? Would it work if I use ONLY HSA funds to cover my deductible-applicable expenses, and not use the FSA funds for anything for me (which I wasn't planning on anyway)? What if I claim the HSA contributions as taxable income on my 2009 taxes?

I feel like an absolute idiot, especially since I did all of the research I could with what was made available to me, but that apparently wasn't enough. And, quite frankly, I'm scared to death, both of breaking the law and being stuck in a really nasty situation with a lack of health care funds - I'm absolutely sick about this. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

Have a small DB plan with a minimum contribution of $41K and a prior year carry-over balance of $61k.

I think the employer can elect to reduce the minimum required contribution by the carryover balance. I think the plan must be more than 80% funded for the prior year after subtracting any pre-funded balance. However, just the pre-funded balance and not the carry-over balance must be subtracted. Correct?

We get roughly every quarter tax discs from CCH. Anyway, rather than

throw out obsolete ones, I take them home to try to use them. Well, I

keep getting this pop-up:

I have CCHIRM04 and CCHMBR02.

This message came up when I tried to use the disks on my laptop. I can

use them on my desktop. Perhaps my laptop has a more advanced version

of Windows?

Message Number: 28946

CCH CD-ROM and Online for Windows was unable to download a file. You

might not have sufficient rights to download files to the CCHWINSYS

application directory or certain files (CVLINK, CVHANDLE, etc) in

CCHWINSYS have been incorrectly set with read only attributes. If the

problem persists, call CCH Customer Support.

For the record, I did access the online help and came up with this. I

tried both sets of steps.

I also found this CCHDS9.INI reproduced below.

http://support.cch.com/answers/resultDispl...pe=5002#Goto127

http://support.cch.com/answers/resultDispl...pe=5002#Goto114

[initialization]

; If the DS9.EXE executable is located somewhere other than in the

; directory with CCHWIN.EXE, set this path ...

;

; Serverpath = C:\CCHWIN\DS9.EXE

; On a VGA screen, this should be wide enough.

Main Window =35, 62, 583, 390, 0

; To disable online (ie: CD customer only), set this = ON

; NO_ONLINE = ON

; To disable CD (ie: Online customer only), set this = ON

;NO_CD = ON

; To enable the International Link Tables button on the data-source

; load dialog, uncomment the following line:

; SwitchLink = ON

; This is the version tag, which is used to detect outdated

; CCHWIN software (to prompt the user to run CCHWIN setup)

UpgradeVersion=V3.50b

[Display]

;Set to NO if you cannot see certain formatting

USECOLORS=yes

;Set to NO if you would rather not see italics, bold and underlining

USEFORMATTING=yes

[DataSources]

DataSource0=E:\

StartUpAutoLoad=YES

ChangeDiscAutoLoad=YES

; These are the entries normally maintained by the "Load Publications"

; dialog. You may (manually, as well) specify 1-100 here:

;

; DataSource1 = F:\

; DataSource2 = YOUR_SERVER/FORMS:\

; This option skips the "Load Publications" dialog and automatically

; loads any DataSources specified above; it can be set from the

dialog.

;

; StartupAutoLoad = ON

; ChangeDiscAutoLoad = ON

; If UseImports==ON, and ImportFile={valid path} then the values in

the

; network ini file overide local settings.

;ImportBlockFrom=$(Import_File:ImportFile), IMPORT_OVERRIDE

[PRINT]

SKIPHPTEST=YES

[DS9]

; This copies down sections of the CD to your hard-disk to

; dramatically improve load-times.

[CCH_BUFFERS]

;

; Buffer sizes are given in K

; Defaults are 1000 and 500.

;

DISK =1000

WINDOWS =500

;The deleteswapfile=on option will delete the swap file of each

; user upon exit of CCHWIN. If the swap file is stored on a network

;drive this option will reduce the amount of hard disk space used by

; CCHWIN.

;DeleteSwapFile = on

[CCH_PATHS]

SYSPATH=C:\CCHWIN\SYS

TMPPATH=C:\Users\Ed\AppData\Local\Temp

CCHWinPath=C:\CCHWIN\cchwin.exe

USERBASEPATH=C:\CCHWIN

;----------------------------------------------------------

; You may wish to provide these paths ...

; Path to the system files:

;

; SYSPATH = C:\CCHWIN\SYS

; Used for writing out the log files, and for the spillfile.

;

; TMPPATH = C:\

; Used for FastLoad and Magnetic Help. Defaults to TMPPATH

;

; MAGSYSPATH = C:\

; Used to point to 'workstation' files. line.pro, modem.pro, and

*.dlg

; Defaults to SYSPATH. CMMethod.pro is different than in ACCESS and

does

; not use this path.

;

; WSPATH = C:\

[COMM_PARMS]

ENGINE =06p03

; Time before idle-logoff warning/disconnection

;

IDLEWARNING =5

IDLEDISCONNECT =15

; To use a communications DLL, set this path:

;

; COM_MODUL=C:\CCHWIN\CMXSYNC.DLL

; This number is not hard coded any more. However, we

; still provide our user a default number to start with.

PHONENBR=1(800)328-2427

COMNETWORK=at&t

BAUD=2400

PID=NewProject

DTE=031343123763400

fMultiConfig=TRUE

fShowEngine=TRUE

fShowATTNbr=TRUE

[Thesaurus]

thescch=<CCH Standard Thesaurus>, ON

; Set the DeleteCache = yes to delete the cached graphic files that

are

;downloaded during an online session. All cached files will be deleted

;upon exit of CCHWIN. The default is NO. Increase or decrease the

;MaxCacheSize. The default is 5 megabytes.

[Cache]

;DeleteCache = YES

;MaxCacheSize = 5000000

;Set the UseImports = on to enable the use of a shared ini file.

; Only applicable for a network install.

[CCHWINS]

;UseImports = On

FASTLOAD=on

[PUBLOCK]

; If UseImports==ON, and ImportFile={valid path} then the values in

the

; network ini file overide local settings.

;ImportBlockFrom=$(Import_File:ImportFile), IMPORT_OVERRIDE

[iD_PARMS]

USERNAME=NewUser

[sSCE]

MainLexPath=C:\CCHWIN\SYS

MainLexFiles=sysignor.tlx,sysignor.clx

HelpFile=C:\CCHWIN\SYS\ssce.hlp

[sSCE User]

UserLexPath=C:\CCHWIN

UserLexFiles=usrignor.tlx,usrsugst.tlx,usrexcld.tlx,C:\CCHWIN\SYS

\syssugst.tlx

IgnoreCappedWords=0

IgnoreAllCapsWords=0

IgnoreMixedDigits=0

IgnoreMixedCase=0

ReportDoubledWords=1

AutoCorrect=0

LastSelectedLex=usrignor.tlx

CaseSensitive=0

SuggestSplitWords=0

PhoneticSuggestions=0

TypographicalSuggestions=1

SplitContractedWords=0

SplitHyphenatedWords=1

SplitWords=0

CharSet=0

Language=1033

MatchCase=1

MinSuggestDepth=1

[COMTUBE_SOCKET]

HOSTNAME=cchwin.cch.com

PORT=6200

[TimeTrak]

fAllowClear=TRUE

[search]

AutoThesaurus=NO

SortByRelevance=NO

SearchType=Boolean

PLMatchType=all

[HPFONTS]

CCHBOLD_.TTF=TRUE

CCHCB___.TTF=TRUE

CCHCOND_.TTF=TRUE

CCHITALI.TTF=TRUE

CCHNORMA.TTF=TRUE

CCHREVER.TTF=TRUE

CCHSO___.TTF=TRUE

CCHST___.TTF=TRUE

OCRA____.TTF=TRUE

Does anyone know of any examples of plans with defective language or adoption agreements with unacceptable language where "nobody got hurt", the effect of the impact never got expressed, but the court still ruled that a sanction must get paid.

Can anyone provide information or a link to an online resource or provide information regarding the accelerated amendments due to plan termination?

Incidentally, some people seem to think that if a plan terminated on 12/31/2005, it would not have to amend for 401(a)(31) (whose RAP for plans using a mass submitter ended on 12/31/05), but of course the required effective date for 401(a)(31) would not allow of such a notion. Can anyone name some court cases supporting this?

As the TPA, we provided the blackout notice well in advance of the 30 day minimum requirement. However, there was confusion as to who was responsible for delivering the notices. One thought the other was doing it and vise versa. Well needless to say, it didn't get delivered to the participants. The blackout is to take place (starting) in a week and run for a week. What are our options to make this right? I assume if it's possible, to push the blackout back, but I don't think that will be possible. Has anyone had this happen? (It's a first for us.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Did anyone hear that Pres. Obama said that he will not let the PBGC go belly up? Supposedly he said that his method of protecting them was not to allow businesses to do a distress termination if the reason for the distress termination was due solely from the market losses from '08.

Did anyone else hear this?? If so can you point me to a link? Thanks.