Good Morning All,

I just accepted a position as a Benefits Specialist with a company just is in the process of being spun off. The parent company who is a large conglomorate decided to spin our division off in an effort to concentrate on a different product line. We are currently in the process of transitioning our 401k, Pension, and H&W benefits to new vendors and one of my responsiblities is to coordinate this conversion. The majority of my experience in the past has been with 3rd party vendors in established benefit plans, so I have limited experience with starting new plans from scratch. We are going to be modling our plan after the parents companies existing plan and then making additions and subtractions to make it our own.

Does any have any suggestions or best practices that could help easy my transition into the this new position, in addition to help me learn so that I can make the transtion as smooth as poissible?

Thanks.

Adam

Good Morning All,

I just accepted a position as a Benefits Specialist with a company just is in the process of being spun off. The parent company who is a large conglomorate decided to spin our division off in an effort to concentrate on a different product line. We are currently in the process of transitioning our 401k, Pension, and H&W benefits to new vendors and one of my responsiblities is to coordinate this conversion. The majority of my experience in the past has been with 3rd party vendors in established benefit plans, so I have limited experience with starting new plans from scratch. We are going to be modling our plan after the parents companies existing plan and then making additions and subtractions to make it our own.

Does any have any suggestions or best practices that could help easy my transition into the this new position, in addition to help me learn so that I can make the transtion as smooth as poissible?

Thanks.

Adam

Good Morning All,

I just accepted a position as a Benefits Specialist with a company just is in the process of being spun off. The parent company who is a large conglomorate decided to spin our division off in an effort to concentrate on a different product line. We are currently in the process of transitioning our 401k, Pension, and H&W benefits to new vendors and one of my responsiblities is to coordinate this conversion. The majority of my experience in the past has been with 3rd party vendors in established benefit plans, so I have limited experience with starting new plans from scratch. We are going to be modling our plan after the parents companies existing plan and then making additions and subtractions to make it our own.

Does any have any suggestions or best practices that could help easy my transition into the this new position, in addition to help me learn so that I can make the transtion as smooth as poissible?

Thanks.

Adam

Company A, A health care company owns 34% of Company B. Company A also provides managerial functions for Company A until 12/31 when their contract expires. The 2 remaining sh want to create a new plan on 1/1 and rollover the assets of their 30+ new employees, formerly employed by Company A. Nothing has changed about the work being performed by those 30+ ees.

How do we create a new plan? Does company B need to maintain their current vesting, and prior creditted service? Is company required to vest them at 100%.

Company A, a health care organization owns 34% of company B. They also provide managerial services for Co. B. On 12/31/04 the management contract expires and at that time the employees that provided those services as Company A ees become Company B ees.

Company B wants to create a plan on 1.1.05. Do they owe prior service and vesting to the former company A ees?

Would there be any reason why Company A would be required to provide 100% vesting to Company A when the rollover into Co. B?

I talked with a doc's office who just recently discovered that their 401(k) plan has been top heavy since inception (mid 90's) and they have not been making the required 3% contribution for all non-key's (the 3 keys have 401(k) contributions well over 3% of pay). They are in the process of determining the liability for all of those years and turning themselves into the IRS.

In the meantime, they's like to start a second 401(k) plan with the goal of eventually terminating plan #1. I assume they want to "freeze" if you will 401k #1, with no new money coming into it. Keep it around until they resolve matters with the IRS. Starting in 2005, they want to start 401(k) #2, for the same group of ee's (all employees) with probably the same or similar plan specs.

Other than plan #2 not really being necessary, is there anything wrong with this scenario? Am I correct that they should not terminate #1 until after the problems are resolved?

We recently acquired another corporation that had a dc plan similar to ours. We are rolling outstanding participant loans from the acquired company's plan into our plan. Do we need to execute new notes for these loans since the original notes were between the participants and the prior plan? I'm thinking that we do need new notes because our plan is not a party to the notes. The service provider said that this is not necessary. Any thoughts?

Does anyone know what the disclosure requirements are for changing the date for valuing benefit information from end of the year to the beginning of the year?

Basically, the Plan's census information dated (1/1/03) was used by the actuaries for the Plan year ended 12/31/02.

However, the determination of end of year benefit information on a timely basis has not been practical to say the least bit, therefore the Plan would like to start using data as of the beginning of the Plan year. This would cause the valuation date of benefit information for Plan year ended 12/31/03 to be 1/1/03.

Is this even possible? Any insight or reference is appreciated.

I am trying to help a company that does not offer insurance to their employees solve a problem. They currently are reimbursing their managers for insurance premiums that are paid out-of-pocket by "grossing up" the managers' salary. This is a questionable practice at best, and also not ideal because it's aftertax dollars being used. (They tried more than once to offer insurance to all employees but couldn't meet the required 50% participation test for NC.)

Does anyone know how they might be able to set up a pretax means of reimbursing managers, or at least set up a pretax means for managers to pay the premiums themselves? My reading in EBIA's cafe plan manual suggests to me there is a way, but so far no one I've talked to has given me an actual way to implement a solution.

Any suggestions on this are appreciated.

Ed

Company has a SEP-IRA for which only the owner has balance because he is the only one eligible (3 year eligibility requirement). Company put in place a 401(k) plan this year (6 month eligibility).

Must aggregate for top heavy, correct?. If plan is top heavy, what eligibility is used to determine which non keys would get the top heavy contribution? Thanks.

I'm doing some work for a retirement plan designated as Plan Number 333. I seem to recall that, years and years ago, pension plans used numbers beginning with 333 and welfare benefit plan numbers began at 777. Does this sound familiar to anybody else out there?

I have a doctor's practice who had two staff members. All three were participants in a Safe Harbor 401k and are 20% vested. The two staff members terminated their employment in June 04 leaving only the doctor as a participant.

There will be no more employees to enter the plan until July 1, 2005.

I was thinking ahead to making the distributions for the two terminated staff members. Would this be considered a partial termination even though there was no layoff? These two employees terminated on their own free will.

Should I make them 100% vested? Thanks.

A sole prop farmer wishes to establish a DB plan. His income is schedule F income. I've never even seen a schedule F. The farmer's accountant wants a specific code citation in reference to fica and db contributions for determining when the fica amount is segregated. My response was that fica is segregated from earned income first, then the sole prop farmer makes a db contribution from that taxed amount.

Would someone please steer me in the right direction re the appropriate citation for segregating fica and schedule F?

Prior to sponsor paying QNEC to plan, sponsor files bankruptcy. Owners of sponsor are plan participants and also the plan fiduciary. Other than pursuing collection of the QNEC in the bankruptcy or suit against plan fiduciary, is there any (simple) procedure or ruling allowing/mandating transfer of the QNEC amount from the owner/fiduciary/HCE plan account to the NHCE accounts? Thanks for any suggestions.

Married participant retires and elects the 50% QJSA. A year later he and his wife are divorced. She is willing to submit a QDRO waiving any survivorship interest in the plan. Goal is to get his monthly benefit bumped up by switching to a single life annuity.

Our procedures don't allow for this waiver, and I know the order cannot require the plan to take this action.

My question is whether the plan has the OPTION to allow such a switch. From the administrator's point of view, the 2 forms of benefit are actuarially equivalent. May a plan allow this?

A partipant took out a loan and loan payments were made through payroll deduction. However, the employer failed to transmit the payments to the trust account. Should a 5330 be filed? What should the plan sponsor do?

If a profit sharing plan has a discretionary profit sharing contribution, and the employer intended on making a contribution but didn't deposit the contribution on time, what are their options (if any)? Can they deposit the contribution late and just not take the deduction for it and still allocate the contribution to the participants?

The new regs require the insurance company name and contact information to be included in the general COBRA notice (sent to new enrollees of the plan).

My company offers employees numerous choices of medical, dental, and vision plans. Does anyone know if we can list all the insurance companies in the general notice, or do we have to customize the notice to each employees selections?

Thanks for any advice.

This probably has an obvious answer, but I had to ask: Client wants to have a loan feature in his 401k plan. He understands that there will be a small fee that the loan participant will incur and must pay, to the TPA. Client's question is, can he (the owner/employer) also charge a nominal fee for his aggravation involved in approving the loan? He is talking in the $30 - $40 range, not much at all. Also, could this be paid to the employer?

The plan permits only one loan outstanding at a time. A participant took a loan for the purchase of a primary residence a few years ago. The loan was amortized for more than 5 years.

The participant wants to add to the loan amount. Can the new amount be amortized for the remaining payment term of the first loan (more than 5 years left) even though the additional amount is not for the purchase of a primary residence?

I would think I could only amortize the additional amount for 5 years but I'm not sure. If I amortize the additional amount for only 5 years, I don't have level payments, but I think that is okay.

Note - we won't meet the requirements of 72(p) if I consider both loans outstanding at the same time. Thanks for your comments.

Michele