I'm looking for a pension study group in the New York-Westchester-Southern Connecticut area.

Any leads would be helpful.

Thanks,

Steve

A 57 year old is trying to qualify for Medicaid. In order to do that, she must begin taking life expectancy distributions from her IRA. Otherwise the IRA is considered an asset that would preclude her from receiving Medicaid benefits.

The problem we're running into is that Medicaid says the distributions must be calculated using their table, which is not one of the tables that can be used under 72(t) to avoid the 10% early distribution penalty. So it's looking like the 10% penalty can't be avoided.

Has anyone run into a similar situation, and was there a way to resolve it (short of applying for a private letter ruling)?

Just hoping to get thoughts on whether a premium only cafeteria plan is subject to the HIPAA privacy rules. Thanks in advance.

Is it in a TPAs best interest to add a box on the FSA enrollment form for employees to indicate that they are enrolled in a HDHP + HSA option and to use this information to limit reimbursement of expenses to dental and vision?

Since HSAs are "self-policed," what are the FSA administrator's responsibility to ensure that expenses being reimbursed are within the guidelines of the medical plan the employee and/or dependents are enrolled in?

Specifically, we have employer groups who do not offer a limited purpose FSA, however, their employees are enrolled in a spouse's HDHP + HSA option and still want to run orthodontia through their employer's FSA plan.

Thanks

Ok, I have been doing distributions for many years but I am drawing a blank right now (it must be because I have been waiting on some nationwide reports for the better part of an hour...)

I have an plan that has a 9/30 PYE who has a participant that turned 70 1/2 this year. I think this partiicpant is the father of the owner, but I will need to verify this. Would he be required to take the RMD due to the atribution of ownership?

I'm pretty new to this, and know very little about voluntary benefits. An employer offers voluntary short-term disability that is fully-insured. The plan has been in place for just over a year, and the carrier has not done any subsequent enrollments. The employer, apparently, has not made it a practice to offer the benefit to new hires. Now a pregnant employee, hired after the plan was in place, is wondering about the voluntary STD, and says she would have enrolled had the benefit been offered to her. Does the employer have any liability in this case?

opinions please...

we have an off calendar client (12/01 - 11/30) who just instituted auto enrollment features. [For some reason, they added it as of 11/01/2006 (instead of waiting for the plan year beginning 12/01/2006!)]

Anyway, this industry has a lot of line workers who don't make much $, but, of course, didn't return their enrollment forms timely. They were autoenrolled and flipped out when they got their first check and the 401(k) deduction was there. They are paid weekly, so by the time they get to the HR office, the next week's deduction has already been done. They NOW sign the form declining enrollment.

The client wants to refund the $ to these participants. Can we do this?

This is my first auto enroll plan, and I don't know if the "old" rules even made any kind of reference to return of deferrals once the participant declines in writing. I know that PPA references a 60 -90 day window after withholding, but that won't be in effect until 2007 or 2008 when plans use the safe harbor auto enroll rules. The 10% excise won't apply at that time, either and match will forfeit.

Any comments appreciated.

Does anyone know if it is possible to do the following w/ a Taft-Hartley multi-employer DB plan:

can the trustees of a multi-employer plan "wind down" the plan w/o terminating it, so that the contributing employers are making contributions for unfunded vested (past) accruals, no future accruals are occurring, there is no plan termination and the employers are receiving Davis-Bacon credits for the contributions made to the past unfunded vested benefits?

or is this scenario too good to be true??

I have been searching the internet for an answer to what would seem to me to be a very common question with little satisfying results. What I want to know is this:

What contribution limits apply to funding a personal IRA and/or Roth IRA after I have made a $15,000 contribution to my 401k? I am over 50 years of age and frankly I would rather fund accounts outside of my 401k as I don't feel the options I have for making investments in the plan are good.

Background.

Owner A and his sons in aggregate owned >25% of nonpublic traded stock. Owner did 1042 for a portion of his shares. This was a transaction with multiple owners selling shares so that ESOP owned >30% after transaction. Transaction #1.

5 years later owner A sold additional portion of his shares and exercised 1042. At this time he did not own >25% in aggregate with his sons. Transaction #2.

2 years later owners B &C sold to ESOP in transaction #3. Both excercised 1042. Transaction #3.

Question:

Does the indefinate nonallocation period for 1042 >25% owner apply to any transaction or just the first transaction that occured when owner A and sons in aggregate owned >25%?

And if it only applies to number 1 transaction then it appears that owner A sons can get allocation of transaction #2 after 10 year nonalloc period and can get allocation of transaction #3 from the get go.

The code/regs on 25% owner and articles i've read never seem to have multiple transaction examples. Can anyone point me to a good reference source?

Thanks.

I replied in response to the comments made at this blog-thread on the drawbacks of IRAs. One of the listed cons was that there's no death-benefit. I noted that one can invest in an annuity within an IRA, but that I didn't think you could buy a life insurance policy within one (further research verified this). However, of course, annuities are expensive relative to mutual funds, as you're paying for the benefits.

Regarding annuities in a retirement plan, the only possible benefits I can think of are: (1) To guarantee an income stream from the retirement plan after retirement; (2) To provide a tax-advantaged death-benefit, should you die early, for the advantage of your spouse's saving for retirement. Specifically regarding #2, are (or can) death benefits from annuities within IRA's (be) kept within the IRA and treated as all other funds in the IRA?

Upon some further research, I went to a site describing a "time bomb" for the elderly hoping to pass on their money to their heirs, that is present in both annuities and traditional IRAs. Neither of these vehicles, unlike stocks and bonds, has a step-up basis feature upon your death. This, of course, isn't applicable to Roth IRAs.

So, curious, what's the analysis of those here on the effects of this? It seems to me that, to the extent that one can convert to a Roth, this isn't applicable. (and after 2010, there will be no income limitations on conversions).

Thoughts?

I have a very small 401(k) plan where the owner is going to start having to taking an RMD this year. Question, as he is still working full time, can he continue to contribute to the plan (deferrals, match and discretionary Profit Sharing contribution)?? So, if he has to take out, let's say, a $5,000 RMD distribution (the plan isn't that old, so he doesn't have a huge balance), could he simply defer $20,000 into the plan and more than wipe out the taxes that he'd owe on the RMD?

I've got a plan that defines final average earnings based on the highest 5 consecutive calendar years within the last ten years of employment. The employee only worked partial years during the first and last years of the 5 consecutive year period. Can we pro-rate those years (e.g. salary earned/actual number of months worked x 12 = annual salary) or do we have to just include the actual annual salary for her two short years? The plan is silent as to this issue -- technically, the lack of any provision allowing for a pro-ration suggests that we must use whatever annual salary she actually had. But the intent of the plan in determining the "highest" average suggests that the intent is to give the participant the benefit of pro-rating her earnings rather than skewing her average by using less than full years of employment. Any thoughts?

An employer sponsoring as self funded health plan subject to HIPAA and COBRA is sold to an unrelated employer. Coincident with the sale, it terminates its afore-mentioned plan so that it is liable only for claims incurred through date of sale. A standard plan provision states that claims must be submitted within one year of incurral.

How long must the employer give claimants to submit claims incurred pre date of sale after date of sale for them to be honored (not to exceed one year)?

It would be most appreciated if citations would accompany any valid responses.

Happy Holidays

The SEC has issued a cease & desist order against the City of San Diego, noting that the people who

prepared bond issues were aware that their pension funding obligations were about to explode.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2006/33-8751.pdf link will give you the text.

If you ever get a chance to talk with the parties involved, the municipal conflict of interest issues were huge.

The same people approving their own higher benefits were responsible for underfunding the plans and also for the misleading SEC filings.

Thanks to Susan Mangiero, CFA for the information. Her discussion is found at http://www.bvallc.com/pensionblog/

I apologize if this topic has been addressed before. I was directed to here from the APA Listserv.

We had an employee that had around $350 for 401k withheld in 2005. I just received a letter from our 401k administrator (along with a check for the amount of his deferrals) that states that he was not eligible to defer until January 2006. The letter just says that we should tax the employee on the money.

What form do I fill out to ensure he gets taxed on it? There seems to be several theories from (1) simply adjust his 2006 W-2 (because that is when he is receiving the money back), (2) give him a W-2c for 2005 or (3) give him a 1099 R for 2006.

Any assistance you can give me is greatly appreciated.

Angie

(1) Grandfathered nonqualified plan provides for distributions upon a change of control. A change of control will likely occur next year, but participants do not want distribution.

Any thoughts on whether it would be a material modification to provide that no distribution due to that specific change of control? any change of control?

(2) For non-grandfathered plan, same issue. Any thoughts on whether participant could avoid distribution on the basis that transition relief permits a new distribution election for amounts payable in the next year?

One year at Thanksgiving my mom went to my sister's house for the traditional feast. Knowing how gullible my sister is, my mom decided to play a trick. She told my sister that she needed something from the store. When my sister left, my mom took the turkey out of the oven, removed the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish game hen, and inserted it into the turkey, and re-stuffed the turkey. She put it back in the oven.

When it was time for dinner, my sister pulled the turkey out of the oven and proceeded to remove the stuffing. When her serving spoon hit something, she reached in and pulled out the little bird. With a look of total shock on her face, my mother exclaimed, " Patricia, you killed a pregnant bird!"

At the reality of this horrifying news, my sister started to cry. It took the whole family two hours to convince her that turkeys lay eggs.

To Kill A Walking Bird

My Best Friend's Dressing

Thighs Wide Shut

The Texas Coleslaw Massacre

Casserolablanca

The Fabulous Baster Boys

12 Hungry Men

Silence of the Yams

For Love of The Game Hen

I Know What You Ate Last Winter

All the President's Menu

White Meat Can't Jump

When Harry Met Salad

The Story of U.S.

The Wing and I

If you own 5% of the company's oustanding stock, are you considered a 5% shareholder?