Under the PPA, a plan that has been operating as a single employer plan can file an election of multiemployer plan status with the PBGC if it meets certain criteria and sends a notice to participants, beneficiaries and employers. Plans would presumably have to adopt amendments relating to withdrawal liability, 415 limitations, top-heavy rules, etc. Does anyone know whether any regulatory guidance is expected regarding such amendments? Should we assume that the PPA's remedial amendment period applies to such amendments?

In the DOL guidance http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/regs/fab_2006-3.html the 45 day deadline for issueing benefit statements seems to speak to DC plans. Defined Benefit plan participant benefit statements are referred to after the 45 day deadline is mentioned (in item 3). Does the 45 day deadline apply to DB plans?? Also, does the 45 day deadline also appy to the alternative notice provision for DB plans?? It looks to me like the DOL guidance specifically states the 45 day deadline applies to individual account plans. Any clarification is appreciated. Thanks.

Can anyone provide me a site I could use to provide a client as to when the early distribution penalty applies. My understanding is that is is the date the participant ACTUALY attains age 591/2 not the calendar year which they turn 59 1/2

A husband and wife have different plans. The husband has an HSA plan under his employer, and the wife has a $250 deductible PPO plan with her employer.

Can the husband use his HSA funds to pay for his wife's out-of-pocket expenses?

Have a plan that is top heavy ,integrated and only provides allocation to terminated particpants with more than 500 hours, top heavy mins go to all actives employed on last day of plan year.

Question. If client puts in small contribution that doesnt allow plan to integrate 3% base + 3% excess, then how does allocation work?

First we gave 3% th min to all actives per document. This leaves about 1.5% of base plus 1.5% of excess to allocate.

So do terms wtih >500 hours get only 1.5% of base + 1.5% of excess?? Which is less than the th minimum people got?

seems weird that you can do this in prototype and if so, then are we in general testing land?

Who thought integration could be so much fun!

I was wondering if someone could help me with this question. Assume a TPA meets the requirements for being an IRA provider. How can a TPA offer IRA products to participants of a Plan it administers and get around having a prohibited transaction? I know there is an PTE for automatic rollovers, but what about for amounts above the automatic rollovers? Is there a particular exemption or way to get around it? Consider a TPA and wants to start offering IRA products to plan participants who may leave the plan and want to rollover their accounts to an IRA. I can't find anything on point. Please help

Sorry for another post about IRAs. I am getting there with selecting a company but before that

i am curious on what most of you veterans are investing in for your IRA. Is it Stocks or Funds? I found some brief pros/cons for them and a couple of articles say that Stocks are good early on and then fall to "safer" funds when getting older. Also, my Stock friend told me that historically Stocks grow higher than funds. He also told me Energy funds is a good fund to buy.

I am 25 right now and I want to invest the maximum (4000) per year into a ROTH IRA and am wondering if I should go with investing in Stocks or high return funds. I want to figure out what the "best" way to go so i can pick my company since some might be better than others in one or the other. Any suggestions? Thanks a bunch!

Do plan earnings fall under question 10g even though the instructions say to not include unrealized earnings/losses in 10g? If yes, can you give me an example of what types of contributions would cause question 10c to be answered? Think I'm having a brain cramp......thanks in advance

We just closed our PYE 2005 in mid-Dec 2006. (strike one) While we understood that we failed the ADP test, we did not know the amounts of the refunds due to the ADP test. (strike two) At the last minute [a week before the new year] we finally get our information from our administrators and accidently forget to send the distribution request to remove the funds before 12/31/06. As it stands now, our erisa attorney has not sent our 5500 off, or even if this can help our excess contributions for the following plan year.

Any opinions or options? I am hopefully to see some light at the end of this 401k tunnel.

Hello Everyone, new user here.

My Question is as follows: Can I transfer my existing IRA into my wife's name? This IRA was formed with pension funds after retirement. If so will ther be any tax implications?

Thank You Bob

Some of this may be basic, but I'm working out the interplay between an HSA and an FSA. Individual began family coverage under an HDHP effective 1/1/07 and intends to set up an HSA for 2007. Individual's spouse is covered by an FSA through her employment. FSA's period of coverage is September 1 to August 31. I assume that the FSA is a general purpose FSA.

Question is when is the individual eligible to begin to contribute to an HSA for 2007. Is it September 1, 2007? If so, is the contribution limited to 1/3 of the maximum for 2007? What if the FSA available amount is spent down to zero before Spetember 1, 2007? Is it the first day of the following month? Under the recent legislation, the grace period is disregarded if the balance on the last day of the plan year is zero. This seems to suggest that it cannot be any earlier, but maybe I'm wrong.

Could the general purpose FSA be amended to become a limited purpose FSA via a snap on amendment? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I have some Credit card debt but they are all in a 0% apr card till August. I figure i can probably pay it all off (inc future expenses) by next months. Is it better to pay off all debt before doing IRA or I should let the 0% sit a while and use the available funds for IRA first? Obviously the earlier i put in the money for IRA the better but what are some of your veteran's thoughts?

An ER has $x in plan forfeitures (being held in a suspense account) that cannot be reallocated to participants' accounts. It wants to use some of the $x to pay off plan expenses. However, not all of the $x is required to meet plan expenses.

The ER would like to keep the excess in the suspense account and use it for future plan expenses.

When I read IRC Section 415 and the regs, it seems to say that you have to apply the balance in a supense account to participants' accounts in the next plan year (or years), which says (to me) that the plan sponsor can't keep any surplus forfeitures in its own personal bank account to be used against the plan's future expenses.

Am I right or could a plan sponsor make its own little expense account out of unallocated forfeitures being held in a suspense account?

thanks in advance for any help.

With the repreal of the "lesser of rule" by the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 I am left wondering what the appropriate HSA contribution limitation would be for our HDHP coverage tier called "Employee plus one" -- It's not self-only and it's not family coverage.

Is anything other than self-only considered family coverage for HSA contribution limit purposes?

Thanks in advance,

Cole

A participant filled out an enrollment form in 2000. On 12/31/06, yes 2006, he wanted to know why his 5% deferral was never taken out. The employer found the 2000 paperwork and called us.

What do we tell them and what are they liable for?

Thanks

Empolyer forgot to submit deferral contributions into participant's 403(b) account who had properly completed an deduction percent form. Calander year plan and EE noticed the error in October. The ER worked with the EE and they decided together the entire years deferral contributions could come out of her remaining paychecks. I calculated the lost earnings and the ER submitted the amount to the participant's 403(b) account.

Now I know this may seem like a silly question but, since this is a 403(b) plan, do I still complete a 5330??

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The client's auditor is questioning the assumed rate of return on plan assets for the calculation of the net periodic benefit cost. Does anyone have suggestions on how to justify the use of the rate the client has selected?

I have a plan that was created in December 2005 but had an effective date of 1/1/05. Unfortunately on 1/1/05, there were 103 employees who were all eligible participants. The company wound up only having 80-90 employees by the end of the year. As of 12/31/05, there were no assets except for an employer contribution receivable. Is there a way to deem this a short plan year for purposes of the audit requirement? I know the 80/120 rule doesn't apply because there wasn't a previous year filing. Any way around the audit? Thanks in advance!

Last time I calculated one of these (many years ago), the accepted method was dividing the individual's PVVAB by their life expectancy factor. The general consensus in my office is that you can't do that anymore, yet no one knows what the procedure is since the laws last changed. I may have missed something, but it seems that the 401(a)(9) regs don't specify how an RMD from a DB plan should be calculated. Can somebody please explain the procedure to do this? Thanks everybody and have a happy new year!

If you have a SH that had immed entry for sh and deferral but you have a PS contribution that has a 1 year and 1000 , Do I still need to pass a 410 (b) on the ps?

Because right now I am giving out a SH and on the PS side I only have 4 out of 16 ee's eligible for the contribution. I always get confused on if I still ahve to pass the Coverage if I gave every one a 3% SH.

Thanks!