We have an employee who is going to have gender reassignment surgery (going from female to male).

Are there any issues as far as insurance coverage we should be concerned with.

I am aware this elective procedure is not covered under our group health insurance.

I'm also assuming this employee could use their Medical Reimbursement account to cover some of the expense of the surgery.

A plan participant maintains employee plus spouse medical coverage. The spouse recently was incarcerated and is now in the "big house", maintaining access to health coverage while visiting. The employee wishes to reduce medical coverage from employee plus spouse to employee only. If gaining access to government sponsored health coverage is not considered a qualifying event, wouldn't the coverage that is gained when entering the pen also be an ineligible event??

Believe me..I've tried to understand all of this. I'm going to explain what we'd like to do and how I understand it and please tell me if it's doable. I'm still confused as to whether or not it is permissible to offer different accounts to different employees or if they must all be the same.

Small employer will have a dozen or so employees working overseas and plans to give each one an HRA with $5,000 in it to be used for privately obtained medical and dental insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses. Let's call this HRA #1.

Same employer has several current employees that he offers an HRA to for expenses only, $1,000 per year and they can accumulate and rollover up to $2,500. HRA #2.

Same employer will be hiring several new domestic employees and would like to reimburse them for up to $4,500 per year for privately obtained medical/dental insurance premiums only (no carryover provision)....must provide insurance receipts, etc....As I understand it he does not need to have a plan document for this nor does he have to offer it to every employee either the old ones or the newly hired ones.

Same employer would also like to offer HRA #2 (to cover the out of pocket expense above and beyond the premiums) to the select new employees he's providing the premium reimbursement funds for.

Is all this legal and proper? Is there something I'm not understanding correctly?

I know this has likely been addressed before but it's very confusing.

Lisa

Two partnerships are considered one employer by the ownership. The partnerships each have a 401(k) plan and their are highly compensated employees in each of the plans. Do the plans have to be aggregated for testing purposes; ie coverage, top heavy and adp/acp?

Prior to termination from employment, I submitted outstanding reimbursable health expenses to my employer for reimbursement. However, they only reimbursed me for a pro-rata portion of the elected annual dollar amount as of date of termination. To simplify, my total elected amount, some of which is covered by employer contributions, was $1000; but they only permitted reimbursement of approximately $500 (the amount deposited to "my account" as of date of termination).

Is this correct? If not, do you have a reference or regulation?

I have a Participant who died. At the time of his death, he was married to his second wife. After his death, first wife has presented us with a QDRO. This is a defined benefit plan. We are currently paying the second wife the QPSA. What are our options? Our QDRO procedures are silent on this issue. Thanks.

Just for fun, perhaps some of you would like to help skew the average results (4 out of 10 answers correct) of this quiz.

Possibly this has been addressed before, but I could not locate it.

Assume NRA is age 65, and NRD is first of the next month (or something similar), and the plan requires one year of service in order to participate. Example, CY plan year, EE is hired on 12/31/2004 at age 66. He/she then can become a participant at 1/1/2006. What is the NRA? NRD?

Alternative 1: NRA = 12/31/04 and NRD = 01/01/2005, retroactively established when the EE becomes a participant.

Alternative 2: Both = 01/01/2006, on the assumption that you cannot have NRA or NRD if you are not in the Plan.

Alternative 3: Other?

Perhaps you think, who cares? But I see relevance under IRC 411(b)(1)(H)(iii).

The Plan failed it's 2001 (no mistake 2001) ADP + ACP tests. Unadjusted ADP corrections of $8,724 and ACP corrections of $633 are required. What should the Plan Sponsor do to fix this?

My future husband and I will be filing jointly for year 2006 and I would like to open up a Roth IRA for each of us. He makes 75K a year and I make 36K a year on long term disability. Now that I've gotten the question of whether my long term disability is considered 'earned income' by the IRS (it is) I've been told that I can't earn more than $10,000 and have my own Roth IRA. My State Farm agent told me this. Can this really be correct? How's a lady supposed to have her own individual account and still be married without a 'spousal' Roth that is basically and appendage of her husbands Roth? Can someone give me a claification on this???

Ok - we're having a debate over the relationship of service providers to the plan. Are all service providers (i.e. recordkeepers, investment managers, trustees, etc.) considered to be parties-in-interest for purposes of Schedule C, line 2d?

Under ERISA Section 3(14), party-in-interest is defined in part as:

1. Any fiduciary (included but not limited to, any administrator, officer, trustee, or custodian), counsel or employee of the plan.

2. A person providing services to the plan.

In #2, does a "person" mean an actual person, or does it also include entities?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Laura

The Health Savings Account Answer Book is now available from Aspen Publishers.

For more information or to order on-line click on the following:

Aspen On-Line

To order by telephone, call 1-800-638-8437.

The Health Savings Account Answer Book is now available from Aspen Publishers.

For more information or to order on-line click on the following: Aspen On-Line

To order by telephone, call 1-800-638-8437.

A recent thread prompted me to pose the following questions for those forum members with experience in dealing with the "individual" or "solo" 401(k) plans.

Are most/any of the plan documents used by those entities marketing individual 401(k) plans worded to explicitly exclude employees other than the owner, or is it more common to simply use a standard 401(k) document for a single participant plan and merely call it a "Solo(k)"? If the former, do they accept adopting employers that have employees other than the owner?

Thanks for any and all feedback.

Assume a private company with a leveraged ESOP that is valued by an independent third party once each year (as of the end of the year). Assume that all shares acquired by the ESOP were acquired after 1992.

How is the value of shares released in a year determined for company Financial Statement purposes?

I believe that AICPA SOP 93-6 indicates that the actual fair market value of the shares at the time of the release should be used for this purpose.

How is the fair market value determined if the Financial Statements are prepared prior to the completion of the valuation by the independent third party? Is the share value from the prior year used?

I can't get a clear answer - are one participant plans subject to ERISA?. Interested in plan asset regulations esp., but other ERISA provisions as well.

If someone could advise me on the following:

I have an employee that went on Workers Comp Leave and has an FSA. I know what to do in the circumstances of someone on FMLA but what can be offered (if anything) when someone is on W/C leave?

I have a profit-sharing plan which was amended last year to provide that benefit accurals would cease effective August 31, 2004.

Compensation earned up to August 31, 2004 will be considered in determining the amount of each participant's contribution.

COntributions are allocated pro rata according to participants' compensation.

The 2004 contribution is in the process of being allocated and I have been asked whether the $205,000 401(a)(17) compensation limit should be pro rated in determining the allocation. (This is a calendar year plan year so the pro-rated limit would be 8/12 or 2/3 of the $205,000 or $136,666).

Does anyone have any thoughts?

question retracted.

I don't see Form 1024 on the "Forms and Publications" portion of the IRS website. The most recent version I've found through other sites is dates Sept. 1998. Does anyone know if the 1998 version is the most recent update?

Thanks.