Janice Wegesin’s 5500 Preparer’s Manual states, enter the complete legal name of the corporate trustee, the names of all trustees, or the complete legal name of the custodian of the plan on line 1a of Schedule P. Usually one trustee is authorized to sign.

Someone in our office went to a seminar (cannot remember who sponsored it) and remembers hearing, if you have more than one trustee for the plan, separate Schedule Ps should be prepared for each trustee because it is not a good idea to have only one trustee sign.

Can anyone give me a reason why having only one trustee sign Schedule P would not be a good idea?

Hi,

I have a question regarding the addition of the coverage testing information on the Schedule R.

If a defined contribution plan made no distributions during the year, is exempted from Part II, and is eligible for one of the coverage exceptions, does the Schedule R need to be filed? The instructions are not clear to me. It appears the form would be blank in this situation.

Thanks

I think I have a pretty good grasp of the case law with respect to SPDs that are inconsistent with plan documents, which often times results in the SPD controlling. But what happens when an offer letter includes incorrect information about an ERISA plan? My first impression is that the employer may have some liability, but since the offer letter is not a plan related document that any liability would stem from a state breach of contract claim rather than an ERISA claim. Any thoughts?

Joe is a participant in his 401(k) plan. His plan entry date was in 1990. He leaves for military duty in February of 2004. I am completing the ADP/ACP tests for the period of 1/1/2005 to 12/31/2005. Joe has no compensation and no contributions in 2005, as he is still completing military service. Is Joe included on these tests with zero salary and zero contributions?

We have a client who contributes 50% of the cost of health insurance, single or family, the employee pays the difference (50%) pre-tax. The president of the company negotiated a contract (this is a non-union employer) with two of its employees to ay 70% (ee pays 30%). The agreement occurred mid-year, off cycle with the Section 125 plan. We disagree with the employer in allowing two participants to maintain different contribution levels for the exact same coverages that the rank and file split 50/50. Wouldn't this fail the 80% test, or any other C&B test? These are HCE's too.

Has any changed their benefit arrangement from a traditonal compensation structure to a fee for service? If so, what does the fee usually run? Is there a "measuring stick" say of 10% as used in the P&C world? Any assistance, or resources is greatly appreciated.

are match scp violations included or excluded in the acp test?

This year's Grey Book from the EA meeting had several questions on optional forms and I believe at least one of those questions referenced final regs under 411(d)(6) - does anyone know how you search for these regs ? - I tried on the CCH website to no avail ???

Hope there are some NJ experts out there!

In January, the acting governor signed into law a bill that would amend the insurance code requiring any group contract issued or delivered in NJ after May 12, 2006, to cover children until age 30 provided certain qualifications are met. As we read it, the law requires the the employee or "child" (if you can call a 25-30 year old a child) to apply for this coverage in writing to the insurance carrier and pay necessary premium to the insurance carrier. The benefit then provided are identical to the group plan and employers are not required to contribute to the cost of coverage for these overage children.

Employers are, however, obligated to notify the employees of the law immediately before its effective date (May 12) and when any child would age out of the plan otherwise (we use age 19 and 23 for full time students). My question is this, we currently have several fully insured HMO's in the state of NJ that provide coverage. Our plan renewal date is 7/1, after the effective date of the law. However, as of 7/1 we will only be offering a self-insured national plan. Are we still obligated to send out a blanket notice of the law to all NJ employees even though it will never apply to our plan?

I received a call from a client today asking about the Special Tax Notice. I met with them recently to amend the plan to allow Roth deferrals and now they are asking about the Special Tax Notice because it says specifically that you cannot roll over benefits to a Roth IRA. My client pointed out this could be very confusing to some participants. Has anyone else thought of this? Is there an updated Special Tax Notice?

Don't know why, but I had it in my mind that the PBGC was required to respond within 60 days to a notice of reportable event. Of course, I now cannot find any reference to such a requirement and, in fact, have not run across anything that places any duty on the PBGC to respond.

Any practical experience with when and how the PBGC responds to reportable event notices? Is anyone aware of any requirement that the PBGC respond within a specific time frame to such a notice?

Thanks!

Registered member #15,000 today.

no prize? no baloons?

again, thanks for maintaining the site!

plan's NRA is 65, does not allow for in service distributions and has no early retirement provision. owner, age 62, wants to rollover a portion of his account to an ira and remain a participant in the plan. should the plan doc be amended to incorporate an early retirement age of 60 or add an in service distribution option? wouldn't the latter open up the possibility of more participants removing funds rather than those who have just reached age 60?

A corporation dissolved in the mid 90s. The officers and Trustees of the corp are still around, so they've kept the plan going. It's been properly updated and 5500s have been filed. Nearly everyone has been paid out, but now the IRS is having a fit because, technically, there isn't a plan sponsor. They want to disqualify the trust and put them through the CAP program.

Maybe I'm out in left field, but it seems to me that the IRS is overreacting. Why can't the Trustees be considered liquidating agents, acting as successors to the employer? Any thoughts from my peers?

Just looking for the comfort that comes from a collaborative consensus.

Under final regulations, designated Roth contributions are subject to the rules of section 401(a)(9)(A) and (B) in the same manner as pre-tax elective contributions. MRDs based on Roth deferrals are non-taxable.

Am I missing something?

Lets say you have an MAGI of 95,000 and you convert a large traditonal IRA to a Roth (resulting in higher income and taxes), is your MAGI still considered 95,000 (i.e. is the conversion ignored) for your Roth IRA contribution meaning you can contribute the full $4000 or does the conversion play a role in your MAGI for the contribution?

Can a Profit Sharing plan that has money invested in a hedge fund incur UBTI? The hedge fund has sent a letter to the effect that the hedge fund has operated in a way that creates Unrelated business taxable income. Does this require the plan to file a 990-T? What other repercussions could there be from this investment?

Document loan policy says loans will be given at a "commercially available rate". I always thought this meant that the loan would be given at the same rate as a fixed, secured rate (similar to a loan secured with a CD or savings account.) The loan at that rate would be around 6%.

I am hearing that the rate should be "Prime" or "Prime Plus" something and that I am wrong about what rate should be used. The prime rate is much higher.

Can anyone comment? Much appreciated.

How are self-insured plans integrating HSAs into their plans? How are premium savings determined for a self-insured plan when stop-loss rates are not decreasing by implementing a high deductible plan? Are self-insured plans changing to fully-insured only plans or are employers offering both of these options? What are common examples of plan offerings that employers are providing when adopting high deductible plans when they currently have a self-insured option only? How can Third Party Administrators make up the loss of pepm from the self-insured plan and/or loss of revenue from stop-loss?

We have a max accrural on vacation time, and someone has recently suggested that we can allow the employees who are about to lose hours of vacation time, to contribute that to the 401(k) Plan instead.

Fact about the plan I think you should know- 401(k) Plan is management only, all others are subject to CBA.

I know under a cafeteria plan you can buy and sell vacation time, however, you if you are going to allow employees to transfer unused $$'s to the 401(k) you have to also offer a cash out.

If we offer the option to transfer at risk vacation hours to the 401(k) would we have to offer that as a cash-out as well?

Thanks for any advice and or guidance links.