In the poposed 415 regulations, post severance compensation paid within 2 1/2 months after seperation from service can be counted for limitation years on or after January 1, 2005.

Am I apply the guidelines correctly?

A participant terminated December 28, 2004. On the 2005 census provided by the client, this participant has the same termination date, zero hours reported, salary of $300, deferrals of $25 and match of $5.

Do I change the termination date to 1/1/05 and include this person in my ADP/ACP test???

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Does IRC 105(h) apply to governmental plans?

I can't find an exception, but I have a diificult time understanding why Congress would want to apply 105(h) to governments.

Client pays out a former participant in 2005 and pays 80% as a lump sum. Doesn't remit the 20% withholding to IRS. To date, no 1099-R or 945 remitted. What to do?

I have a 125 cafeteria POP with over 100 participants - do I have to file a 5500 or is this considered a "pure fringe benefit plan? Is this a gray area or am I just overworked and underpaid? I have been hours trying to figure this out.

We have one client whose welfare benefit plan is funded by insurance and a veba. We are confused as to how to report this on F5500. If I'm understanding this correctly, there is only one F5500 filed and we would select the "Funding and Benefit Arrangements" at Line 9 as Insurance and Trust? Is this correct? If so, what detail is needed for the trust? We have Schedule A for the insurance but what would be needed for the VEBA (trust) portion? This would be schedule H or I, correct?

I posted this question at 401k forum but didn't get any replies. I'm hoping for better luck here. I searched the boards for this and found something that might help, but I'm hoping to get some further clarification. Plan document says that compensation is only counted from date of plan entry. No problem there. The problem is for the partners w/ K-1. How do I determine K-1 comp for only 6 months or 3 months of a Plan Year? Another post indicated that a partner (actually I think it was referencing a Sole Prop) has only one payroll period, 1/1-12/31. Does this mean that ALL of the compensation was earned on 12/31 so if the partner entered 7/1 or 10/1 his entire K-1 is entry date comp? Any thoughts are appreciated.

I just read an old post about a disability benefit becoming 411(d)(6)-protected (i.e., not ancillary) to the extent it is greater than the "qualified disability benefit," which is described in 411(a)(9) as a disability benefit that does not exceed the benefit which would be provided for the participant if he separated from service at NRA.

For this purpose, do you simply compare the actual monthly disability benefit payment to the actual monthly retirement benefit payable at NRA, or is this a more complex, total benefit/actuarial calculation?

A DB plan was add late in 2005 to an existing 401k-PS plan and it's intended to be permissively aggregated for testing and subject to the gateway (don't qualify for the exemptions from gateway). There were some modest match contributions made on a more liberal basis (eligibility wise) than exist for the PS plan or DB plan. Do the participants that got these token match contributions but who are not eligible for the PS or DB contribution/accruals have to get the 7.5% gateway ? Or is the fact that 401(m) testing on match contribution is mandatorily disaggregated from the general 401(a)(4) test enough to avoid giving them the 7.5% gateway (on an aggregated allocation basis) ?

I posted this a little while ago on the HSA forum and thought someone here might be able to help, too.

My company will be implementing a high deductible health plan at annual enrollment 7/1. We will have two carriers nationwide because of network access in various parts of the county. We will have a $1,500 single deductible/$3,000 2 party or family deductible. After the deductible is met, there is a 80%/20% coinsurance until the OOP maximum is met.

Recently one of the carriers came to us and said because of regulations governing HDHP in order to allow an HSA with the plan, the deductible must work differently than what we thought. According to the carrier, if you have a family of 3 and one person has $1,600 in claims, benefit co-insurance will not begin for that individual because the family deductible of $3,000 has not been met.

Can anyone confirm this or provide the legal site for this?

thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

My company will be implementing a high deductible health plan at annual enrollment 7/1. We will have two carriers nationwide because of network access in various parts of the county. We will have a $1,500 single deductible/$3,000 2 party or family deductible. After the deductible is met, there is a 80%/20% coinsurance until the OOP maximum is met.

Recently one of the carriers came to us and said because of regulations governing HDHP in order to allow an HSA with the plan, the deductible must work differently than what we thought. According to the carrier, if you have a family of 3 and one person has $1,600 in claims, benefit co-insurance will not begin for that individual because the family deductible of $3,000 has not been met.

Can anyone confirm this or provide the legal site for this?

thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

We have one client whose welfare benefit plan is funded by insurance and a veba. We are confused as to how to report this on F5500. If I'm understanding this correctly, there is only one F5500 filed and we would select the "Funding and Benefit Arrangements" at Line 9 as Insurance and Trust? Is this correct? If so, what detail is needed for the trust? We have Schedule A for the insurance but what would be needed for the VEBA (trust) portion? This would be schedule H or I, correct?

The facts are:

An S corp owned by two sole proprietors; the s corp is in the employee benefits business and receives commisions for group medical insurance and life insurance. The S corp has 4 employees, the employees service the business of the s corp as well as process and service business of 2 non owner non employees who pay the s corp a management fee for services which include rent and phones, etc. The s corp also services some business for the 2 sole proprietors that are 50% owners.

The sole proprietors income is schedule c income primarily 75%+ from investment management fees and commisions paid to them by a broker dealer, the other 25% is from insurance commisions.

The plan is to have a SIMPLE IRA for the S corp and seperate Profit Sharing and/ DB plans for the sole proprietors. We are receiving conflicting info as to whether or not this is an ASG.

Thanks for any input

I have heard that you can withdraw the amount invested in a Roth IRA without penalty if needed. I am no where near retirement age, but I need to pay some debts, and was thinking of using some of my Roth IRA to do so. Is this possible if I only withdraw some of the money I originally placed in the Roth IRA? It was all post tax dollars, so there shouldn't be any penalty right?

Thanks.

A client would like to have a new plan set up with an eligibility requirement of 6 months and 500 hours of service. I was previously told that if a plan requires less than 12 months of service, an hours requirement cannot be used. I've also seen volume submitter documents that allow you to specify a number of hours required for each month during the eligibility period (seemingly even if the period was less than 12 months long). Is not having an hours requirement for less than 12 months of service a safe-harbor rule or can you have an hours requirement no matter what the circumstances are and no matter how short the eligibility period is? All help is appreciated.

Hello,

If I am not mistaken, there are several states that require tax withholding on pension/retirement plan distributions whenever there is federal withholding. I believe Virginia and Colorado are two such states; however, I think that there are maybe up to ten more.

Does anyone have an idea which are the other states?

Thank you,

ADMINREX

Company A acquires the stock of Company B in December. Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Company A is required to establish a pension plan for employees of Company B that mirrors the plan sponsored by Company B's former parent, to be effective as of the closing date. Is there a requirement that the new plan document must be executed by the end of the calendar year of closing, or, since it will take some time to draft, review and finalize the plan, is it OK if the plan is executed early the following year, effective retroactively to the year of closing?

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to handle a situation where an FSA administrator failed to withhold any wages in accordance with the FSA plan participant's salary deferral election? Note, the plan year ended 12/31/05 (with the exception of the 2 1/2 month grace period and administrative run-out period). The employer has indicated that it is okay with reimbursing the ee for his qualified medical expenses as a 106 expense. My thought is that this fix would be okay (however, the participant would, in theory, be a "zero" for nondiscrimination testing). Any thoughts? Is there any guidance on this issue? I can't seem to find any.

can you exclude severence pay from eligible comp under the SIMPLE IRA plan and thus not have to withhold or match that severence pay?

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to handle a situation where an FSA administrator failed to withhold any wages in accordance with the FSA plan participant's salary deferral election? Note, the plan year ended 12/31/05 (with the exception of the 2 1/2 month grace period and administrative run-out period). The employer has indicated that it is okay with reimbursing the ee for his qualified medical expenses as a 106 expense. My thought is that this fix would be okay (however, the participant would, in theory, be a "zero" for nondiscrimination testing). Any thoughts? Is there any guidance on this issue? I can't seem to find any.

I currently have a 401K with my current employer and one from a previous job. I am looking to roll the old 401K money into the current plan. The current plan has a loan outstanding. To pay off the loan, the current plan only accepts bank certified checks. Why can't I use some of the rollover proceeds to pay off the loan? The old 401K money will eventually be invested in the current plan, why can't it just pay the loan off to get there? Thanks.