QDRO provides that alternate payee's award is "subject to actuarial adjustment ... for the Alternate Payee's age, sex, and benefit form selected."

This is the first QDRO I have encountered with an actuarial adjustment for gender. Because of the unisexing of the actuarial assumptions and factors after Manhart, Norris etc, my knee jerk reaction was "holy cow" or something like that. On second thought, the alternate payee is not an employee and thus not covered by (?) by Title VII and EPA sex discrimination provisions.

Anyone reviewed this issue?

I have a basic question regarding top heavy determination which I would like confirmation. When adding back distributions made within the 1-year lookback period, am I correct that distributions made to participants who did not render services during the 1-year lookback are disregarded?

Question (1)

If I am married and file separately it is my understanding that my personal AGI cannot exceed 110K to qualify for a Roth. Further, I belive that my spouse and I collectively cannot have more than 160K AGI. Is this true?

Also, can I still contribute in subsequent years to this Roth when my AGI goes beyond 110K or 160K w/ my spouse?

Question (2)

I should know this but don't. Can you have both a regular IRA and a Roth IRA?

Thank you so much for any help. I'm considering a reg. IRA conversion to a Roth and need help!

Got a call from a 57 year old Dr. that wants to put in a DB plan. He is in business for himself and has no employees. I asked him if he ever had another DB plan from a business which he owned and he said "yes" but it was terminated "about" 12 years ago. I told him I need the amount of the benefit he earned under the prior plan to use as an offset to the current maximum benefit limit. He came back and said neither he nor his CPA can find any records.

I am not going to cut corners but I can see how the records could be difficult if not impossible to come by. I don't see how can I do this without the plan document and the amount of his distribution? Anyone had a similar experience? How was it resolved?

I have a few employees that are seeking reimbursement for a monthly fee they are paying to their chiropractor for on-going service. I believe it should be reimburseable, they do have a medical condition (chronic back pain) and the chiropractor is treating it as needed. However, when are the services incurred? They may have an adjustment one or thirty times in one month. Would their reimbursement only be eligible at the end of the monthly service period? Or, could it be reimbursed if the documentation attached indicates the monthly fee is billed out on the first serivce of the month? The plan document is not specific to this type of expense. Has anyone else run into one of these? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

thanks!

the code is pretty clear that the transition rule applies only to coverage when two companies merge but choose to run the plans separately. the rule does not apply to adp/acp. this may be a silly question but then do you have to aggregate the two plans for adp/acp test but not for coverage?

I've been browsing several different products and so far I haven't hit on anything that seems to be geared toward the retirement plan market. All seem to have fields you can customize but I would like to find a program that doesn't require as much work on the front end. Thanks for any input!

If a plan contains a cross-tested profit sharing feature and a 401(k) feature, when determining the NHCE concentration % for the average benefits test (plan is cross-tested), can you exclude terminees with <500 hours? I don't think you can, but just need clarification.

Thanks for any thoughts.

An employer with the owner as the only employee would like to add a DC plan. Does it make sense to use a 401(k) plan with a profit sharing feature, or does it make more sense to use just a profit sharing plan?

The company may add employees in the future, and may want to allow employee deferrals. We could use a profit sharing plan now and add a 401(k) feature in the future when needed, but is there any drawback to just designing the plan from the beginning with the 401(k) feature already in the plan?

Would it be a violation of HIPAA to apply a dollar limit to a diagnosis before appling a preexisting condition limitation. For example, in the first 12 months of coverage a plan would benefit a diagnosis up to $500 before investigating to see if it is a preexisting condition. If the diagnosis is then determined to be preexisting, creditable coverage would still apply.

I know next to nothing about DCAP's except that it is a way to pay for dependent care expenses. If a company wants to institute a DCAP are there any rules as far as pro-rating contributions? By this I mean company plans to begin offering under their cafeteria plan beginning 3/1/05. Can the employee withhold the maximum annual amount contributing January and February retroactively and submitting dependent care expenses from January and February? Thanks for any replies.

There are two profit sharing plans (same employer). Plan A allows everyone in including union employees. Plan B excludes union employees. The employer would like to merge Plan A into Plan B. The intent is to no longer cover union employees. What issues are there in doing this - is it even allowed?

Thank you for any input.

I started a Roth some years ago with $2k. The stock was a loser and the value now is $1200.

Question- Can I take the $1200 out without penality?

I was under the impression that the monies contributed to a Roth being taxed already would available at any time. Only the monies above the contribution would have to stay in the account.

Am I wrong?

Thanks

Paul

Is it possible to have a one person C corporation medical reimbursement plan?

I have a client who is in the middle of converting self directed brokerage accounts in a 401k Plan to platform situation.

They are making a Profit Sharing contribution this year, and wanted to know if, because everyone's money is all over the place, could they just reduce the amount of funding from Profit Sharing by the amount of the refund due to each of 9 docs.

My first response to her was that such a thing is not allowed. Can someone direct me a regulation or other IRS publication to substantiate my response?

Thank you for all responses.

DB PY = 9/30/03-9/29/04

PS PY = 10/1/03-9/30/04

Sponsor's FY = 1/1/04-12/31/04

What comp limit applies? I think the 404a7 limit should be calc'd on 205000, but the benefits and contributions should be calc'd on 200000. Anyone agree? Disagree?

For determining 415 compensation, are any of the following included:

Car income

car allowance

severance

group term life insurance income

Am I correct that possibly in addition to the above and barring barring any other "unusual" forms of compensation, 415 comp is basically W-2 plus elective deferrals?

My firm has some clients who are getting advice for a local attorney about paying for their disability insurance policies. The advice doesn't pass the smell test with me but I can't find any cites to indicate it doesn't work. The advice is as follows:

A shareholder employee pays the premium on his individual disability insurance policy his self, out of personal funds. After the end of the policy year, if the shareholder did not suffer a disability, the corporation reimburses the shareholder for the premium. If the shareholder did suffer a disability the premium is not reimbursed.

If the shareholder did suffer a disability the disability benefits paid by the policy are treated as non-taxable benefits because the shareholder paid the current premium with personal funds. If no disability is suffered the reimbursement of the premium by the corporation is treated as a deductible expense of the corporation under Code Sec. 162 and is not included in the shareholders income under Code Sec. 106.

Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not this works. It seems that the shareholder employee gets the best of both worlds. He can deduct the premiums in year when no disability in incurred, and then can treat the policy as paid for with after tax dollars when a disability is incurred, thereby causing the benefits to be non-taxable.

Thanks for your opinions.

Dean

I am eligible and do participate in both my company's 401K and 457 plans as I work for a government agency. Originally we only were eligible to participate in a 457 plan and recently we were given the option to also participate in a 401k plan also and I have participated in both plans. We are probably in a rather unique if not strange situation vis a vis the tax authorities as most people have one or the other but not both plans. My question is whether or not this participation is subject to the excess deferrals rule of the IRS. How is this treated? Any clues? Any websites I can look at? Any useful advise would be appreciated.

I am setting up an IRA to invest in real estate. I have decided on a self directed IRA custodian but I want to go one step further. I want checkbook control of my IRA.

I have been told that I can do this by setting up an LLC of which the IRA is the beneficiary and then transferring the assets to the LLC. The companies that help with this set up charge about $4,000 which seams like an aweful lot for setting up an LLC. Of course these companies state that the LLC has to be set up corecctly to avoid full distribution of the IRA - enough to scare me out of trying it myself. But there must be another altrnative - I can't believe there is some secret knowledge imparted only to these particular type of advisors. I have no problem paying a competant CPA to help me with this but am not sure if the $4,000 is a little much.

I was also told that you could also get checkbook control by setting up a trust. I appoint a trustee (unrelated party) who would write the checks as I see fit.

By doing this I accomplish 1) avoid having to go to the custodian each time I need to have a check drawn 2) avoid paying fees for them to review each request and cut a check. Another advantage is that I can place the assets where I think they will be the safest.

Thanks for any input you may have.

Val