Up to last night, E-Mails that I sent from Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express were delivered.

As of this morning, none of the many E-Mails I sent were delivered- yet they show up in my ‘Sent” folder.

Anyone ever experienced this?

I have a new client who used to have a SEP account. This owner, acting on wrong information, was withholding salary deferrals and contributing that on behalf and the participants into their SEP. (They were treating their SEP as a SARSEP.

Anyway, they have terminated their SEP and started a Safe Harbor 401(k) Plan.

In the meantime, the employer withheld one last time and sent on the contributions to the SEP. A couple of participants have already cashed out their accounts.

The investment company returned a check to the employer FBO the plan.

Since this is employee money, how should they return this contribution to the employee??

They have to deposit this check into the plan? (not the new plan)!

They need to give the money back to the participants via their paycheck to be taxable to them, but how?

Thank you for your input.

I understand that the spousal beneficiary of a participant (Defined Contribution plan) who died before his RMD (he turned 70 1/2 in 2006 and the RMD is 4/1/2007) has two options for distributions, the 5 year rule or life expectancy rule. At least, I think that's correct. Anyhow, if the beneficiary chooses the life expectancy rule her distributions must start by 12/31/2006. Can she take any of this account balance and roll it into her own IRA?

If she chooses the 5 year rule can she take the entire balance and roll into her personal IRA as long as it is all done within the 5 years?

Thank you

Is there legislation that covers when spouses work for the same company. My husband is under one classification and I am under another. My job has approved a HDHP with an HSA in which my employer is going to fund $3500 into the HSA the first year. I wanted to put me and one child on this and keep my husband and the other 3 children on his plan. My employer is now saying we can't both have coverage because it is double dipping, but that sounds like denying coverage to me.

We have run some component plans forr p/s allocations in the past. A tpa/broker/consultant told a client of ours that he could have their adp test pass every year by running component plans on the adp test. i never heard of that and couldn't find any authority for this postition. anyone heard of this? i know the answer from some will be to ask the tpa for the cite/reg--i am interested first in knowing if anyone has run adp tests like this or have heard of others running them like this. (i know it wouldn't mean it is allowable just b/c some yahoo runs a test like that)

The following excerpt is from IRS publication 794, regarding determination letters.

A "Final" Form 5500-EZ must be filed if the plan is terminated or if assets drop below $100,000 and you wish to stop filing Form 5500-EZ.

This is not what the 5500 or EZ instructions allow. Absent further guidance, we would continue to have our clients file if they drop below the $100,000 level. However, I wondered if any of you have seen this, discussed with anyone at IRS, etc...

A sole-participant sole-proprietor has a DB plan with a required contribution of $51,000 for PYE 12/31/2004. His net Schedule C income for 2004 is $0. Therefore, he cannot deduct the $51,000, and is exempt from the non-deductible contribution penalty.

For PYE 12/31/2005 his net Sch C income is also $0. His contribution requirement for 2005 is $0.

Can he ever deduct the $51,000 he made for PYE 12/31/2004?

Since his net Sch C for 2004 is $0, the $51,000 contribution came from after-tax income earned in a previous period. If he can neither deduct nor return the $51,000, must he pay taxes on this amount (again) when it is distributed to him as a benefit?

The employer is a closely held corporation. Can the employer fund the employer match contribution for the officer/shareholders before it funds the employer match contribution for the rank and file employees? There could be several months between the match contributions.

Client currently has a S-H 401(k) plan utilizing the standard match contribution. They want to change to the 3% SHNEC.

When does the plan have to be amended by? 12/01 or 12/31? Or another date?

I woulde think it is 12/31/2006 and the notice is independant.

Seller company is a financial services company and wants to sell its assets to Buyer. Buyer is a large company with an established ESOP in place. Seller is going to terminate its employees and they will go be hired by the Buyer. There are no roll over dollars, or continuation of any Plan that had been for the Seller's employees. But, Seller wants to look out for its employees and does not want its employees to start over with Buyer on a new vesting and participation schedule. Instead, Seller company wants its former employees to begin employment with Buyer and get immediate participation in the Buyer's ESOP and to be imediately and fully vested. Buyer had agreed to this, but now "says" it cannot do this.

I disagree. I think it is a little difficult for the Buyer, but that this can be done. It seems to me that Buyer can do this by merely amending its ESOP Plan to give the former employee's of Seller immediate participation and to fully credit them with past service with Seller so that each of the Seller's former employees can start out employemnt with the Buyer by fully participaitng and by being 100% vested in Buyer's Plan.

These employees are gonna be "rank and file" --- not hce's so there is no prohibited discrimination. Does anyone concur or differ with me???? Any bullet points of what is involved???

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.