my dad is 81 years old and mom is 80 and they have a small farm any way he already is doing the manator withdraw of his Ira what I am wonder would or could he start another some kind of Ira and claim the contrubition for trying to reduce his taxable income ? Thanks for your help Tony

Plan notified AP when Participant began receiving benefits that it would withhold 50% for 18-months to give her time to present a QDRO. Letter explicitly stated that if she provided an order after the 18 months expired and the withheld money was distributed to the Participant, all she could get was a prospective interest.

Her attorney has drafted an order that goes retro to the Participant's pension effective date because she "missed" all those payments. I say, "too bad", but a partner in my office says it's fine. Is that right? If so, then what's the point of the 18-months if the participant is going to have to pay anyway?

An individual owns 100% of 5 different companies. He receives a wage and defers at 1 company only. Out of the 5 companies there are only 2 HCE. When testing for the ADP/ACP are all 5 companies tested together or are they tested separately?

I have been told that you first test together and if the test fails then you test separately.

Does the same scenario hold true for the 410(b) non discrimination testing as far as testing together and if they fail, test separately?

Does anyone (or has anyone) figured out a way to get a report that is a census history report for a plan's participants. Let me explain. I would LUV a report that would show me the hire date, entry date, status and status date, along with the hours and comp for a participant (actually I want it for more than one) for all years that I have on Relius. I know that I can go and print census verifications for each year, but that gets a little tedious. I would like (okay I really, really really want) to be able to glance at a participant's history and see how many years that they worked over a 1,000 hours, etc. without having to work too hard at it. (Is that being lazy?)

Say a plan pays $150,000 in cash from the plan to purchase a piece of land.

However, there are closing costs, commissions, taxes, utilities, association dues, etc.

The plan sponsor isn't sure if this chould be paid out of corporate funds, pension assets or both.

My impression is that if no party-in-interest is benefiting from these payments, then it appears that these payments could be made out of corporate funds, since the pension is supposed to pay for reasonable administrative expenses only.

Any thoughts?

A 401(k) plan fails the ADP test. Participant S has excess contributions of $5,000 which must be distributed to him (he is the only HCE). Recently, however, a QDRO paid all but $1,000 of his account balance to his ex-spouse. His account balance is presently $1,000. Obviously, a portion of the excess contributions have been paid to the alternate payee. What to do?

I'm confused as to the difference between voluntary employee contributions as opposed to employee contributions. There seems to be a difference.

Example, we have a job hopper from academe and the private sector,... say a former law professor... He starts as an atty a gets a 401(k), then becomes a prof and gets a 403(b) -- then leaves to work in management consulting and gets a 401(a) DC plan.

He is still young, could he do a 72(t) on the first account, -- the 401(k) only and keep the 403(b) untouched? Can he still keep getting contributions in his curremnt 401(a) plan?

I tried to remove this topic but did not have any luck. I found out Social Security will provide death information at 1-800-772-1213 (Company Tax ID requried). Now I know what state or county to request death certificates.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction. .......And there's nothing you can do about it!

All you have to do is type in "Unclaimed property (and the state name)" (Google works great) Several links will be pulled up. I usually click on anything that has .gov in the address. Than I do a search with the states database for free. You will be amazed at how much money is sitting out there. I found out in 1990 I didn't cash a pay check. I moved around so I checked several different state websites. This is also great for looking up deceased relatives unclaimed property. Lousiana, New York, and Texas have very useful Unclaimed Property websites. And of course always check PBGC website to see if you have a pension sitting out there or contact social security. Social Security has a record of pensions that you did not immediately take in the year you terminated from an employer.

Ok- ESOP participant is taking a lump sum distribution and decides to take advantage of the special tax treatment of the ESOP shares.

So the taxable amount = cash + stock basis.

I knoe that if this were a shares only distribution there would be no withholding becasue there is no cash. Here there is cash but not enough to withhold the federal tax , much less the required state withholding.

Should I send as much as there is to the Federal Govt and "stiff" the state or shoudl I do some sort of pro-ration of the taxation so both the feds and the state get something?

If i'm totally off base on this, please educate me.

Go to Google and type in "What time is it in (City)" It always pulls up the website: www.timeanddate.com This is great if do not want to wake up someone that is five hours behind you. Such as calling from Dallas to Hawaii. Your participants will thank you for this

I'm interested in opening an IRA, but I can't seem to find out the minimum requirement for opening one. I'm on a limited budget, so it's needed information. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

If an IRA beneficiary designation provides that two children share the IRA 50 percent each, and one child predeceases the IRA holder, what happens? Let's say the beneficiary designation and the IRA agreement doesn't address the issue. Does the surviving child get 100 percent of the IRA or does the deceased child's share go to the child's estate?

I'm a bit confused about our TPA's response to a COBRA payment question we recently encountered.

Situation:

Employee Terminated 12/15, received COBRA notice and submitted election on 12/23 sending payment that covered 12/16 until 12/31. The TPA's COBRA election form reminded employee that payments were due on the first of month with 30 day grace period. Employee has not made any payments since the one received by TPA on 12/28.

On 12/28 our TPA sent Employee a letter stating the employee had received the payment and that the next payment was due on or before 2/19/2005. ????

When I questioned the TPA about this, they insisted that the employee had, at a minimum of the end of their 60 days of election to pay for their election.

I reminded them that he had, in fact, made the election and paid for the election he made back in December.

According to the DOL website:

"The initial premium payment must be made within 45 days after the date of the COBRA election by the qualified beneficiary. Payment generally must cover the period of coverage from the date of COBRA election retroactive to the date of the loss of coverage due to the qualifying event. Premiums for successive periods of coverage are due on the date stated in the plan with a minimum 30-day grace period for payments. Payment is considered to be made on the date it is sent to the plan."

If that is the case, wouldn't the "successive period" have been the January 1 premium with the grace period for 1/30? TPA claims that their COBRA program is set to comply with all regulations and they follow it's lead.....They are insistant that the employee, despite their payment for the period retroactive to their election back in December, still has until 2/19 to pay more so his insurance is still active. We will soon be out of time to retoractively cancel the policy back to the last payment.

Am I misreading the DOL explanation?

Help!

I'm a little fuzzy on this as I rarely see it in practice, thanks in advance for any help.

Law Firm PLC is owned by 5 = partners (assume taxed as a partnership and not simply an expense sharing entity). The 5 partners are attorney's. Each attorney has his own separately incorporated law firm, and each partner attorney generally derives his compensation from his own corporation. The attorney owners all operate under the name of the PLC for day-to-day business purposes.

The attorney's would like the PLC to sponsor a newly to-be-adopted 401k plan. None of the owner-attorneys want to participate, they simply want this benefit so their employees have access to a 401k plan. All of the non-owner attorney's (several) and admin staff are employed by the PLC.

I think I have an affiliated service group? If I use a prototype and the individual attorney corporations simply don't adopt the plan, does that mean that the five owner attorney's are then simply just ignored for plan purposes? Or do I have to put them on the ADP test w/ whatever their net earnings from self employment (taking into account SE tax adjustment) is from the PLC (assuming that's a positive number).

I realize if they don't participate their ADP is zero which could help things (if the owners have to show up on the test). Also if the individual attorney corporations want to exclude themselves from participation by not adopting, can that be done in a prototype environment? I'm trying to determine how to handle the set up mechanically-speaking.

Company is considering the follow safe harbor design:

- Employee can contribute on either pre-tax or after-tax basis

- 100% match on first 3% / 50% match on next 2%; employee receives match on first 5% of contributions regardless of whether they are pre-tax or after-tax or a combination of the two

Assuming all other safe harbor requirements are met, my understanding is there would be no ADP testing under this plan. My question relates to ACP testing. Which of the following (if any) is true:

- there is no ACP testing required, or

- ACP testing is required on all employee after-tax contributions, or

- ACP testing is required only on unmatched employee after-tax contributions.

I have an ERISA 403(b) plan that provides for voluntary, basic and matching contributions. Although the plan does not have any exclused classes, some priests opt out of the plan and do not make or receive any contributions. Instead, their denomination or order provides for them. Has anyone else encountered anything like this? When performing 410(b) testing, 401(a)(4) testing and 401(m) testing, what do I do with these people? Some of the people who opt out are HCEs.