Hi there... I have been trying to find out whether a company can offer Section 125 Premium Only Plan to its employees without having to complete any paperwork for the IRS? Also, can a Premium Only Plan be self-adminstered by the company? Any help on this question wouls be greatly appreciated.

My employer is adopting a Medicare Advantage Plan (sometimes known as a Medicare Part C plan) for its Medicare-eligible retirees. Apparently, this type of plan was made available when Medicare decided to allow claims to be processed by private insurance companies.

My question is what are the filing requirements for a plan like this? Does the plan have to be filed with the DOL? In general, when does a plan have to be filed with the DOL?

Thanks.

Under the PPA 2006, does a defined contribution plan have to disclose on participant statements the explaination of Permitted Disparity of is this just applicable in Defined Benefit Plans.

The Requirement language within the law itself states under Section 508, under defined benefit plans:

"shall include an explanation of any permitted disparity under section

401(l) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 or any floor-offset arrangement

that may be applied in determining any accrued benefits".

Defined Contribution Plans are not mentioned.

Folks:

I am curious if contributions made to a VEBA would qualify under a cafeteria plan?

The IRS Publication 15-B states, "Generally, a cafeteria plan does not include any plan that offers a benefit that defers pay. However, a cafeteria plan can include a qualified 401(k) plan as a benefit."

The VEBA can serve 2 purposes; (1) an insurer; (2) a way to accumulate savings in individual accounts for medical expenses.

Premiums paid to the VEBA as an insurer would qualify unbder a cafeteria plan, for pay is not deferred (it is "absorbed" by the VEBA, as would premiums to a commercial insurer).

However, could an employee accumulate dollars in his individual account, only to pay for qualified medical expenses?

Is it deferred pay, if any unused balance is forfeited back to the VEBA?

Don Levit

I spoke to the plan admin who told me the divorce did not have to be final in order for them to split the benefits.

Apparently where I filed my divorce it's untrue the clerk said to me that normally the judge signs the forms when he/she finalizes the divorce.I filed divorce in the state of Texas where there is a 60 day waiting period. I have about 50 days to go. I'm not even sure how soon they will see me in court after the 60 day waiting period is up ( hopefully within a week). The QDRO plan administrator is very cooperative and nice and she told me that once they recieve the DRO from me everything could take about 3 weeks before I get my lump sum (option I will choose). I'm using their model form,they also reviewed it after my husband filled it out, so basically that wont be an issue.

Has anyone ever had one signed by the judge before the divorce decree ?? If so, if I've already filed my petition for divorce can I go back to the courthouse duuring this waiting period and ask judge to sign it?

I make a little over 36,000 per year. I started working for a large corporation last year after leaving behind a successful family-owned business. I have a masters degree in operations management and 30 years of work ahead of me before retirement.

I am single, no children, but would like to marry some day.

I recently switched my contributions from my company's 401K to a Roth 401K. I do know that I am taxed more than a married man with children, so I am unsure if I made the right decision to contribute only to the Roth 401K. I would have more money going into the 401K if I chose that option. But I feel that later in life my tax bracket will be higher than it is now, and that the Roth will be more beneficial.

Can anybody elucidate the things I should consider in making this decision? I want to be sure that the Roth 401K is best for me.

Is this an acceptable method? This stuff is still beyond me.

There is a control group where one of two companies has a profit sharing plan. The contribution is tested for coverage based on eligible participants in both companies. In order to make the plan pass the ratio test at 70%, additional participants are added based on looking at all terminees during the year who had over 1000 hours, then adding them one by one until the test passes. Is this an outdated methodology? How is this contribution vested? I looked in the plan document and there is no discussion of QNEC's in the 401(k) section. There is also a safe harbor match.

It has been suggested to me that the plan be amended to take away the last day restriction and add everyone who had over 1000 hours.

I am looking for cases, (as well as one in particular that I heard happened in Ohio) where employers paid the premiums for individual insurance policies.

Is it permissable to allow the reimbursement of individual insurance premiums through an HRA that also can be used to reimburse qualified medical expenses? I had read in an EBIA manual that this should be permissable, but was wondering if there was currently any litigation on it. I had heard of a case in ohio.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

We have a potential new client- the current document is on a "Non-Standardized Capital Accumulation Plan" Can this plan be restated as a 401(k)?

According to the client it is operating the same as a 401(k), 5500 being filed plan number 033 plus and all testing.

Anyone else having issues with this? Seems as if they have issued revised Schedule A's with new figures. Amended returns=pain in the butt!!!

A client never told the EEs they could defer on their bonus pay, and thus had to contribute make-up contributions on these bonuses for the 2002 - 2004 PYs. This contirbution was made in 2007.

Now they are failing the 2005 ADP (they are passing ACP); they use prior year testing method. The test WOULD pass if they used current year testing, but obviously we didn't amend the plan in time to change the testing method.

Anyone eligible for the catch-up contribution has been taken into account. Because of the prior year testing, we cannot allocate QNECs.

My thought was that we should go ahead with the refunds (most are about $250), and have the client pay the 10% excise tax because it's WELL PAST the 2 1/2 month correction period.

Any thoughts?

Hello,

I am 36 years old and a brand new investor considering opening a Roth at Vanguard. I have been thinking about putting $4,000. into the Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 Fund. The funds current target asset allocation among the underlying fund is: Total Stock Market Index Fund 71.8%, European Stock Index Fund 10.6%, Total Bond Market Index Fund 10.1%, Pacific Stock Index Fund 5.1%, and Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund 2.4%. The funds annual operating expenses are .21%. Does anybody out there have a strong opinion either way about whether this is a wise move or not? As of right now, I have no other retirement funds. I just want to make sure I've considered everything. I plan on making an initial investment of $4,000. and then have $333. automatically deducted from my checking account on a monthly basis. Any constructive criticism of my plan would be much appreciated, as I am a new investor, and a little nervous. Thanks for reading!

can anyone give me some practical examples and opine on these specific facts as they apply to participant directed 401(k) plans. i am looking at the QDIA regs and wondering if an RIA that is hired as an investment advisor is considered an Investment Manager as required by the regs and as that term is defined in Section 3(38). To be a Inv Mgr you must have the ability to manage or dispose of the assets. in our case we are an RIA. we select and monitor investment options in the plan as well as construct asset allocation models for participants. we accept fiduciary status. we do not accept custody, does this make us an Investment Manager qualified to construct QDIA's.

Hi,

This may be a little complicated, I'll try my best to describe the situation. I work for a hospital who provided a defined benefit retirement plan to us (call it hospital A) In 1993 this hospital merged with another local hospital (call that hospital B) in a "merger of equals" with a new name for both hospitals. Both hospitals had defined benefit retirement plans. Then on 1-1-1994 they did the following....in the case of the employees from my hospital (hosp A) they said our retirement benefits were frozen forever as of the 1-1-1994 value but we could participate in the combined hospital's retirement plan as of 1-1-1994. The plan they chose as the retirement plan for the combined hospital was Hospital B's plan. Employees of Hospital B had no frozen values as of 1-1-94 but continued normally.

So how this works out is employees of Hospital A get a retirement benefit of their frozen benefit as of 1-1-94 plus the new benefit from 1-1-94 on.

The employees of Hosp B receive totally the new plan.

The problem is the benefits for employees of equal years of service works out vastly different for the two groups of employees. The benefit formula highly depends of years of service and in hospital A everyone was given a 1-1-94 date as beginning their service even if their actual hire date was way before that. Hosp B employees years of service is based on their hire date, not 1-1-94.

The difference is significant. I did some calculations and for a 20 year employee with similar salaries the following are approximate yearly pension amounts"

Hosp A $18,500

Hosp B $25,000

This is for 2 identical employees, identical years of service and similar salaries. The only difference is one employee worked for hosp a and one worked for hosp B. All the workers now work for hospital C (the combined hospitals). Is there any ERISA violations here?

Thanks,

Francis

can anyone give me some practical examples and opine on these specific facts as they apply to participant directed 401(k) plans. i am looking at the QDIA regs and wondering if an RIA that is hired as an investment advisor is considered an Investment Manager as required by the regs and as that term is defined in Section 3(38). To be a Inv Mgr you must have the ability to manage or dispose of the assets. in our case we are an RIA. we select and monitor investment options in the plan as well as construct asset allocation models for participants. we accept fiduciary status. we do not accept custody, does this make us an Investment Manager qualified to construct QDIA's.

Hello,

I have a 1 participant MP and PS plans with Fidelity. I am planning to terminate the plans (unfavorable business conditions.) I have been talking to Fidelity about this and they have asked me to do 2 things

-- Write a letter to IRS stating that the plan is being terminated (And Fidelity said you don't have to mail it!! That makes me wonder?)

-- File a final 5500 within 7 months.

Does that sound right? I haven't seen the 7 month requiement any where in the forum. I will be happy to file the final 5500 next year in 2008 for plan year 2007. Is that good enough?

Thanks in advance

A 4 participant PSP historically has been allocating contributions as a Corporation. 2005 plan year each participant received 20% of their comp as a contribution. The doctor and sole HCE, received the$42K max. We just discovered through their CPA that this company is a sole proprietor. Therefore, it appears as if the plans PS contributions have been erroneously calculated, possibly since plan inception. The Doctor comp on census has always been reported in excess of 401(a)17, with the exception of this year when their CPA advised his comp to be $212,671 as his "net self-employment earnings from the clinic before any deduction for contributions to the plan or half of his self-employement tax". This is where we discovered the sole proprietor status!!! I'm thinking that due to TEFRA, the doctor received the max contribution in previous years(20%) and that his employees should have received 25% rather than 20%.

Anyone else run into a similar situation? Is this heading to a VCP filing? Amended returns, etc.???? The plans 2006 restated plan doc. as well as past docs have always reflected the business entity as an LLC taxed as a corporation.

A small company merges nto another small company.

The new small company now adopts the plan and the first plan year is to be a short plan year from 4/1/07 to 6/30/07 with each subsequent plan year from 7/1 to 6/30.

In order to receive a year of credited service the plan requires 500 hours during a plan year.

As far as I can see, if the participant works 500 hours during 4/1/07 to 6/30/07 then the participant can recieve one year of credited service.

Does anyone have concrete evidence indating otherwise?

Thanks.

Have a plan that is cross-tested, 8 different groups. Because of turnover, cross-tesing really doesn't work very well and it's too late to amend the allocation method for the year we are in . Does anyone agree or disagree, that you could run the calculation integrated and then plug the contribution figures into the participants within the groups? As a side note, if we do that, it fails AVB Test and General Test which I know we have to do as part of cross-testing. Some feel that this is acceptable because we are essentially testing on a contributions basis and it passes ratio. I seem to not be able to get past that being okay but can't prove it, and don't we have to amend to state the Integration Level in the Adoption Agreement and state that the contribution will be allocated on an Integrated Basis?

Thanks for any input.

(Second attempt to post) I am researching if it is customary for ALL insurance companies writing voluntary group life policies to include an "Actively At Work" provision. A TPA recently changed insurance companies for a Voluntary Group Life policy and provided an open enrollment period. During the open enrollment period an employee who was on medical leave for a terminal illiness increased the limits of his coverage during the open enrollment period. He died before he returned to work and met the "Actively At Work" requirement. His estate is now suing the TPA and argues that the TPA should have selected an insurance company that did not have this provision. I am trying to determine if there is ANY insurance company that provides voluntary group life coverage that does NOT have this provision. If there is one... I have not been able to find it. Thank you - Jim