We are looking at modifying the vesting schedule for our money purchase plan. The current schedule is 100% immediate with contributions beginning after a 22 month waiting period. The new schedule would likely be a 5-year cliff with no waiting period; contributions beginning upon hire. Can someone tell me what the requirements would be for making this type of change. I believe we would need to allow anyone with three years of service to elect which schedule they would fall under, but are their other requirements? Would we just begin making contributions for employees with less than 22 months of service that elect the 5-year schedule upon adoption of the plan amendment? Any retroactive contributions? Any unforeseen pitfalls?

Thanks for any insight!

Would anyone be willing to share their version(s) of Automatic Enrollment Notices for participants covering these situations:

1. Newly eligible employees only

2. Newly eligible employees plus employees already eligible for the plan

3. Automatic deferral increases

In addition to the initial Notice, is anyone planning on recommending annual Notices to those participants who were automatically enrolled as suggested by Rev. Rul 2000-8?

Can you provide me links to where I can perform searches when I need to look up a Section or regulation??

I always have the hardest time finding them.

thanks

This question relates specifically to the administration of DC FMLA under which employees are eligible for 16 weeks of leave in a 24 month period. We use a rolling-back method. We have an employee who's medical issue started on August 14, 2003. Over the last 24 months, she used her 16 weeks of FMLA intermittently for a health issue. She exhausted her leave on August 17, 2005. How should her leave entitlement be evaluated at this time to provide her additional protected leave? The medical issue has not been resolved, and she is still looking to use intermittent leave.

I have a plan where an ineligible employee contributed ee deferrals. We are forfeiting the account balance, and the employer is repaying the salary deferrals to the employee through payroll with corporate funds.

My question is, do I still include the 2004 deferral amount in my ADP test? I am thinking yes, but I dont know why I am thinking that. I did a search but everything I found dealt with how to return the deferrals, I cant find any discussion about the testing.

Thanks

We want to make eligibility for the company HSA contribution contingent in two criteria being satisfied:

1. Employee must enroll in our HDHP

2. Employee must open an HSA account with our HSA trustee

We are hearing that #2 above may be an issue. Specifically it's believed that the comparability rules may be violated if we do not recognize for eligibility purposes HSA accounts that employees may have established on their own. I have searched the comparability guidance and see nothing that explicitly precludes restricting eligibility for the company HSA contribution in this way.

The plan design objective of the #2 criteria is to ease administration of the company HSA contribution. That is we only wanted to establish a single employee data (& funding) interface. It would seem if we have to deposit to *any* HSA established by a given employee that the administration becomes exponentially more complex. What is common design around criteria for company HSA contributions in these early days of HSAs? Is this compliance issue being raised one that others have wrestled with?

Thanks in advance for any reactions or thoughts.

I am preparing a 2004 Form 5500 - can someone tell me if the 20% referred to in question 4i includes contribution receivables? The instructions are vague.

I have a prototype document client who has a 401k w/ Profit Sharing component. They would like to make an integrated PS contribution each year.

The problem is that they wish to exclude certain forms of compensation from the calculation and their prototype document does not allow for a definition of compensation that requires 401(a)(4) rate group testing (which would be required here because of the comp exclusion).

The options include:

1) use a non-integrated formula which allocates less $$ to the HCE's

2) switch to a custom doc which means added costs

Can anyone think of another option they might have within a prototype environment that I might have missed? Thanks!

If the plan sponsor, the financial advisor and the participant have all lost their enrollment forms....who's responsibility is it ultimately to keep them? Shouldn't it fall onto the participant?

There is a participant who claims they elected to defer 3% each pay period, and they have noticed now 9 months later, that they are only taking out 2.85%, but there is no proof of the 3% to make any adjustments b/c the enrollment form is missing.

I would think its the participant's fault for losing the forms, not the employer, and tell them they have to wait until the next entry date to complete a new form b/c the plan document only allows changes 1/1 & 7/1.

What do you think?

This is a healthcare FSA. Plan year begins on 7/1. The employee terminated employment 8/1. Employee did not elect COBRA. Due to system problems, the termination was not put into the system until September. However, claims were reimbursed for services rendered in August (after the term date). Because the services were incurred after the termination and the employee did not elect COBRA, can we pursue reimbursement of those claims from the former employee?

I'm left a little confused about ERISA Reg. Sec. 2530.203-3(b)(4) after reading some of the posts on suspension of benefits. We had a system failure and did not get notices sent to a group of rehired employees most of whom were under 65 (just a couple over 65). Neverthless, their monthly pension payments were stopped.

The regulation states that no payment shall be withheld unless the plan notifies the employee by personal delivery or 1st class mail during the 1st month or payroll period in which we withhold payment that his benefits are suspended.

I have learned by reading MGB's posts that stopping benefit payments when reemployed is NOT what suspension means. That confuses me in light of the regulation. Can anyone help me sort this out?

Thank you.

Hi everyone,

I wanted your opinion on the following situation, as in light of the circumstances below, I advised to client to obtain ERISA counsel. I was questioned by our in-house contact to the client on this (I think they figured that as TPA we would know how to proceed).

If you could let me know that it was the right thing to do, I'd appreciate it. Or, maybe, this was a situation that occurs often but we don't see?

The situation:

2 Owners, husband and wife. Both over 70 1/2 in a PSP. Husband dies and wife is the bene. Wife dies 3 months later without taking any of the bene money.

Neither had ever taken any MRD's and should have been for probably the past 10 years.

Estate has bene's - the 3 children. Per the trust, husband's $ goes to his trust (passed to bene but she died prior to taking) and wife's goes to her children since no living bene, so techincally both proceeds go to same people

2 out of 3 children are questioning their options. client thinks the 3rd will not as he is "mentally incapacitated". i advised them that they had until 9/30 to make a choice, and that technically since we were past the beginning date of the mrd's that the $ must come out at least as quickly as the MRD's would. After that, I was clueless.

what would you do in this situation? thanks for the replies!

A school system has a cafeteria plan and has allowed participants to be reimbursed for life insurance premiums. The school system already provides a $50,000 life insurance policy for each employee, so the premium for the additional life insurance policy should be taxable to the participant. It is my understanding that this situation has existed prior to this year. How can this be corrected?

Thanks.

I posted this originally in another area in error. I hope someone can help me here. I am an employer who will have several U.S. folks providing services in IRAQ. They will be able to exclude up to 80K as foreign earned income for federal filing purposes.

We have a SIMPLE-IRA plan. How in the heck will this work? For instance let's say the total annual compensation for an employee is: 120K. He will be excluding 80K (except this is only potentially depending on how long he's in the country etc...). If he decides to max out his contribution (10,000 per year) and we are matching at 3% is it 3% of the entire annual compensation or 3% of the amount which exceeds 80K?

If anyone can offer any guidance etc...that would be great.

If a control group situation exists with multiple plans and multiple plan sponsors, must there be uniformity in plan design? Also, must you aggregate the plans for non-discrimination testing? I understand that the 410b test must include everyone from all of the companies as part of the denominator, but is there a situation where you are required to aggregate for testing?

We have a plan that has two lost participants. One has a vested balance of $47 and one has a vested balance of $6. We have tried numerous times to find and contact these people but have had no luck. So I was wondering if there is an amount that if an account is under that, we can give up searching for these people and forfeit the balance? I thought I might have heard $50 at one time. What do you think?

Is there any "guideline" per se regarding the fees that a consultant receives when placing welfare coverages with a TPA, stop loss carrier, etc.? My current employer - I wasn't employed when the contract was negotiated, is paying the consultant 15% of the stop loss - specific and aggregate premiums - as their "fee." Is there a norm and, if so, what it should be? I think $50,000 is a little much for a plan with 200 employees. Am I wrong?

Thanks for any help.

Dolores

Client has 401k Plan with 3% Safe Harbor and does max PS every year.

Client is unhappy with the cost of administration because independent audit is expensive.

Is there any way to get around audit reqs, such as breaking plan into 2 or 3 separate plans with same exact benefit structure in each plan?

One of my sales people would like to set a plan up that when a distribution is paid the distribution fee will come form the forfeiture account. I am aware the the ruling has come out that it is ok to take a distribution fee from a pariticipant account. Is it still ok to label a distribution fee as a General Administrative fee and take it from the plan then the participant who is actually the cause of the fee being incurred would not pay it but all other plan participant's would?

What will be Tax Year if we are filling a return for a short plan year say if it is first plan year beginning on May 1st, 2004 and ending on Dec 31st, 2004.

What Tax Year we will report in Plan Info Worksheet??

Thanx in Advance...

Amit