Who would be regarded as a non-excludable non-benefiting employee in coverage testing for a DC plan?

Looking for an administrator for a loan regime split dollar plan. Any recommendations?

I have a claimant who has submitted reimbursement for a remote car starter. They have a note from a physician stating this is needed "Due to heat; treatment of Multiple Sclerosis". I can find information that states A/C installed in homes to treat a medical condition is reimburseable. Would this also be reimburseable?

I am looking for some direction for a claim received for Reimbursement. The claimant is receiving treatment for Acne Scarring - would this be considered cosmetic?

Does IRC Section 401(a)(9) allow a governmental defined benefit plan to add, as a new benefit, a lump sum payment of the value of a participant's accrued sick leave at termination of employment, with the option to receive the value as a life annuity? The terminated employee would also receive a life annuity starting at the same time, based on years of service and final average compensation. This appears to have been allowed under the 1987 and 2001 proposed regulations, but not under the 2002 temporary or 2004 final regulations. The 2002 temporary and 2004 final regulations appear to require that a participant's entire benefit be paid in either an annuity or a lump sum, and not to allow payment of part in annuity and part in a lump sum. Any thoughts?

A surviving spouse is approaching the end of the 5 year period during which she must make a distribution election. If she does not make an election by the deadline, would the automatic rollover rules apply to her?

I have two separate 401(k) PS Plans that have a control group issue. When doing the 5500, do I combine the counts for the ee's of both plans as well as the assets, or do I just combine them for testing purposes.

I will be testifying this week (so prompt replies would be extremely appreciated!) regarding the value of a pension, currently in pay status as a joint & survivor annuity, in a divorce case. The expert (an accountant) on the opposing side calculated his present values for both the pension and even the survivor benefits by calculating the present value of an annuity certain payable for the life expectancy, based on 2001 CSO. Based on my suggestion, the attorney I'm working with plans to ask me what would happen if an actuary valued benefits for an annual IRS pension valuation by using the life expectancy approach. I'm trying to come up with the strongest fully supportable statement I can make denouncing this approach, recognizing that actuaries are generally allowed a fair amount of latitude in how they do their work.

I was initially planning to say something like "This approach would not comply with generally accepted actuarial standards of practice and the actuary would need to be prepared to justify his deviation from standard practice." -- however, there's got to be a stronger statement that I could make -- ideally that ties in with either IRS or Joint Board regs. Second best (since I don't think it would carry the same weight of law) would be something promulgated by the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) or the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB). I've been trying to find something that _requires_ that the valuation be prepared in accordance with generally accepted actuarial principles and practices, but all the references to this that I've found are from the ASB or AAA and thus are internal requirements within the actuarial profession and not a legal requirement. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also under contention is the value of the survivor benefits. If the retiree outlives her beneficiary, then she gets a popup annuity. As I mentioned above, the accountant used the reasoning that, since the retiree has a slightly shorter life expectancy than her beneficiary, she is not "expected" to outlive him, therefore the value of her survivor benefits is zero. As much as I dislike seeing the life expectancy approach being used for a regular pension, at least it's a rough approximation. In the case of survivor benefits, however, this approach is (I believe) not even a rough approximation. Any other suggestions for nailing the accountant on this point?

Thanks!

I am posting this thread for all of you just to find out if, by any chance, you or anyone else that you know may have been able to record the former Saturday morning NBC series "Skate" ("SK8") on a VHS tape when it aired three seasons ago. I am also in the process of looking for someone who was able to record all of the show's commercials, along with the ending credits at the end of every episode. "Skate" was a teen-oriented skateboarding series that was a part of NBC's "TNBC" lineup during the 2001-2002 television season. The show only lasted one season, with a total of 13 episodes filmed. The main cast included Christopher Jorgens, Adrienne Carter, Jorgito Vargas, Jr., and Blair Wingo.

If you did record this show, especially if you recorded all of the TV commercials and the ending credits, or if you know anyone else who did record this show (in particular anyone else who recorded the commercials and the ending credits), please send an e-mail back to me immediately. Be sure to include the total number of "Skate" episodes that you or your acquaintance recorded. My e-mail address is david_lumpkins@yahoo.com. My ultimate goal is to set up a tape-trade with anyone who recorded this show, regardless if the person recorded or did not record any of the show's commercials and/or ending credits. If you did not record any episodes of this show, please try to give me some additional online websites so I can continue to post this message for other people to see.

Thank you.

(Extremely important note: Over the past year, eight different people have e-mailed me saying that they did record NBC's "SK8" and yet all of them never stayed committed with me to work out the tape-trade exchange. One of those uncommitted tape-traders happened to be Adrienne Justine Carter - also known as A.J. Carter - who is one of the show's actual cast members! All eight people stopped e-mailing me halfway through my agreement for unknown reasons. Therefore, if you do reply back to me saying that you did record this show, I encourage everyone to be 100% dead-serious and totally committed in working out the tape exchange from start to finish. If you did record this show and you are not willing to seriously help me get episodes of this show, please DO NOT e-mail back to me at all. I need a serious tape-trader; no joking around. Also, if you recorded the Nickelodeon TV show "SK8-TV" from 1990, please take note that it is NOT the show that I am looking for! I am only looking for the NBC television show titled "SK8", which was on the "Peacock" network between October of 2001 and September of 2002. Many people in the past have gotten those two shows confused with each other.)

--- David L. Lumpkins

Assuming the other conditions of the safe harbor are met, I'm looking for guidance on the "make or influence investment decisions" and "compensation" elements, where the employer is a bank that wants to offer its HSA custodial package to its own employees. Employer would waive its usual transaction and account-maintenance fees, but would receive some indirect income from the accounts (i.e., interchange revenue from debit card use, sweep fees from the program's money market account, and 12b-1 fees from non-proprietary mutual funds and investment management fees from proprietary mutual funds. There is simply no way to "turn off" some of these indirect revenue streams; does that mean that any HSA program the bank offers its employees is unavoidably an ERISA plan?

I've seen a little informal chit-chat advising banks to offer HSAs to their own employees only on the same terms they would give a third party--I'm not sure I understand that. In this case, that would mean keeping the "consideration" the bank is willing to forego, which seems like a direct contravention of the FAB.

When you have 3 rate groups, how does that affect gateways?

Thanks!

Can I design this formula for a DB client:

5% for ALL service for the owner max of 20 years; .5% of participation service for all others. Accrued benefit is accrued as earned. If owner has more than 20 years of service, his accrual is already zero. When I do the general test, it automatically passes using the accrual method since the owner's accrual is zero while the others is .5. Only need to provide 5% on the DC side to satisfy cross testing. Using the accrual method for the general test seems smelly to me but I cannot say for sure what is wrong with it.

Under a small defined benefit plan (1-5 participants) is there any reason to report under a Trust Tax ID vs. a corporate Tax ID? I recently spoke with a broker who was establishing one of these plans and was concerned that once a 1099R was generated, the corporation's Tax ID might be used in error as that was the number requested on the application. Is this just a high net worth tax strategy or is each small business looking to establish a defined benefit plan required to establish a trust? Any citations of regs, etc. would be helpful.

I need to know if money from a 401k Plan can be rolled into a 403b plan? I was under the assumption that it could be, but I might be wrong. If a participant terminates employment and begins with an employer offering the 403b, can they move their 401k into the their new employers plan??

I'm taking over a Pension plan and a 457 plan for a municipality and I have two questions. Does a municipality have a tax id # and what tax documents does the entity have to file regarding the Pension and 457 plans?

I'm used to working with 401(k) plans and their 5500's.

Thanks

J

Assume a plan is amended to reduce the involuntary cashout level to $1,000.

Does that mean that a plan must allow an annuity option if the pvab is $1,001?

Second question, when is the under or over $1,000 determination made? At the time of termination of employment, or at the time that a cashout would be made under the terms of the plan. What if the pvab is $1,001 this year and $999 next year, can it then be cashed out?

I'm just trying to gather options here, and this will be run through an attorney before being implemented....

Background: 501(c3), employee/president is NOT considered a Key Person or HCE. Even though she would normally be, her income has never been over 90k.

Employee (president) is retiring, and would like to essentially stop taking a paycheck at this point, and put all the income into an account (preferrably an HRA vs. a VEBA). She is owed deferred compensation (at the employer's option not the employee's since there was no money to pay her with) of several hundred thousand dollars. Currently, there is one other employee, who will retire at the same time at the first of the year. The corporation at that point will become a shell with no assets other than A/R (selling business via an asset purchase).

Survey says when its all said and done, there will be 100-150k cash left. She would like to adopt a HRA to push the money into to pay for retirement healthcare benefits, long term care, etc. Noting weird like life insurance, she intends to use it all up between she and her husband.

Ok, now my question... obviously she will have to include the second employee, who is also an officer, but only makes about 30k a year. She has no problem funding this to some level. The question is can you have two tiers in an HRA reimbursement, one for professional employees and one for staff, or I am completely barking up the wrong tree?

The other option would be to keep the corporation active and just fund assets directly from the coporation, but 990's aren't the easiest thing to do for a 2 person benefit.

We are a TPA firm that receives investment reports from the corporate trustee (associated with a large invesment firm) of a retirement plan, which we reflect in the 5500.

For the assets held for investment we have been provided a summary by types of investments, such as Money Market, Corporate & Foreign Bonds, etc. listing their cost and market value. Is this description sufficient for the Schedule H attachment for question 4h or do the actual investments need to be listed?

The assets include a common collective trust and various managed accounts.

could match formula be based on combo of age and service? age only?

Rate of match would increase as age tiers increase or age/service tiers increase.

i know --still need to pass acp and make sure no brf issue -- but only nhce's would receive it.

what about ADEA? allowable ?

Has it become generally accepted that the 417(e) subsidy on a lump sums must be considered in the MVAR ? I generally do it to be safe but have a case with a proposal using a general tested cash balance plan where I'd like to use A.E. of 8.5% to help my discrimination testing, but if I have to include the 417(e) subsidy (whipsaw) effect it's too expensive to pass the general test. The client can live with the whipsaw effect, but not the additional contributions needed to pass discrimination testing if the 417(e) subsidy must be included in the MVAR. Any practioneers out there that still think this might not be required or at least a grey area ?