Can a self-funded plan expressly and indefinitely ban a healthcare provider from its group of providers eligible for direct payment or reimbursement under the plan?

Is this accomplished by listing the banned provider in the SPD, by name?

Would this possibly subject the plan administrator to a defamation claim? Would ERISA preempt?

Provider in question was successfully sued for defrauding the plan and barred from list of approved providers. 10 years later, the plan receives a claim based on treatment by the same dentist.

We have several dc plans with fewer than 10 lower paid participants and one key/highly paid owner. The owners (mostly doctors) have rollovers within the plan with non-qualified assets requiring plan bonds and/or audits. Due to the type of non-qual assets (jewelery, artwork), we have found that the bonds are quite expensive. Here is my question- what would be the problem with having each owner simply "tranfer/roll out" their rollover account into a separate qualified plan? I assume they could easily transfer the rollover accounts to an IRA but what about another qualified plan whereby we could just do an EZ for them. The only issue I can think of at this point is that there would be no "recurring deposits" (if the rollover was tranferred to a new ps plan).

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

If a 401(k) participant earns 80k annually; deposits 10k into his company sponsored 401k plan, can he do a deductible IRA also? He is married and files a joint return with his spouse, who isn't working & earns no income. I know the IRA limit is 3,500 for '04 and phases out between 65k and 75k in joint income. The cruxt of the matter is what income is includable in this calculation? If he deducts mortgage interest and other personal deductible expenses, do they affect the IRA eligibility calculation. Thanks for any advice!!

Is an HMO only obligated to provide a certificate of coverage to participants or must it also provide a SPD to plan participants? If the HMO is only required to issue the certificate of coverage is the employer responsible for the SPD? The only item missing out of most certificates of coverage (for purposes of the SPD regulations) is the ERISA statement of claims? Would an employer be responsible for providing this separately?

Employer and employee enter into a split-dollar arrangement which provides that employer will pay full premiums on life insurance policy owned by employee for 14 years (through 2002). Collateral assignment provides that, if employee terminates or dies before end of 2002, employer will receive the lesser of premiums it has paid or, if less, the cash surrender value of the policy. SDA and collateral assignment provide that, after 2002, employer has no interest in cash value or policy or any right to return of premiums paid. Employee has not yet died or terminated employment. I am not aware of any formal action taken to terminate the SDA or collateral assignment.

By its terms, the SDA is no longer effective; as of 1/1/2003 the entire interest in the policy is held by the employee. Do you think that this situation qualifies as a "termination" of the split dollar arrangement prior to 1/1/2004, as provided in Section IV.4 of IR Notice 2002-8?

I have mulitple accounts with different brokerages and i was wondering how i would go about combining them all in to one. Do I have to pay any special fees for doing this. thanks

If I already have a Roth IRA account with a company, can I open a second account with another company? or do I have to close my first account and transfer all my assets from the first company over to the second company?

Thanks.

Employee currently covered by a health plan through mid-September will begin working for another employer on September 1 (i.e., she will be employed by two companies at the same time for a period of a few weeks). Can the new employer begins covering the employee as of September 1, even though this will mean that the individual is covered by both employers' health insurance at the same time? Does this involve coordination of benefits issues? Also, is it common for an employee's health insurance to terminate as of the date of termination of employment, rather than running through the last day of the month in which they terminate? I am thinking that if the employee's health insurance runs through the end of September with the employer they are leaving, they can start coverage under the new employer's plan as of 10/1? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Participant would like to read an article or two or twenty (he's an engineer) on the concept of taking the entire distribution as an IRA rollover versus buying an annuity from an insurance company and immediately annuitizing it. Any ideas of an article or site that I could puruse to help him?? Thanks in advance.

A client's 401(k) plan has an excess match that was made to an HCE. The match is an excess match due to a miscalculation of the match amount. There are no excess salary deferrals.

It's my understanding that the match must be forefeited (with earnings) and placed in the suspense account. Is that still the current IRS thinking on this matter. Also, just FYI, no need to recalculate the nondiscrimination test since the test was run using the correct amount of match. Thanks for any ideas.

At the Cincinnati Bar Association conference, Monika Templeman, from the IRS, had the following in her power point presentation regarding IRS audits of 403(b) plans:

Ordering rule-employee must use limits in a certain order to apply the age 50 catch up.

1st applies to 402(g)

2nd applies to 15 years of service catch up, if applicable

3rd applies to Age 50 Catch-up, if applicable.

I've been staring at this for quite some time (since June) and I'm still not sure what she was trying to say. Anybody might have an idea?

Thanks

Suzie

Can a participant in a governmental 457(b) plan transfer a portion of his balance to PERS to purchase permissive past service credits? Does a PERS plan meet the definition of 414(d)?

Can an employee transfer their PARS account to a governmental 457(b) plan as a rollover?

Thanks

How do companies pay for active medical claims? My past experience has been that active medical claims are paid through accounts payable, however, my current employer uses a 501©(9) trust to pay for some of its active employee claims. I'm trying to determine how common is the use of a trust for payment active employee medical claims.

Prospect wants to know if he can make contributions to the plan in the form of municipal bonds. Can he or must they be in cash only? Thank you for your assistance.

A participant requested a cash distribution from a plan, and the plan paid the full account balance to the participant, without withholding 20%. They have tried to get the money back from the participant, but have had no luck.

What penalties will apply, and what steps should now be taken? Should the client still send a Form 8109 now without a check for the withholding? Or should they wait until the end of the year and indicated the missed withholding on the Form 945?

We have an Doctor who started a service station in another part of the country. He is 100% owner of his practice and the service station. The service station has only a few employees, and was going to be owned and managed by his father, who passed away shortly after the start-up. Ownership was then deferred to the son. Is there anyway we can NOT have these businesses controlled, under regulation 414®?

Company X sponsors a 125 plan for its active employees. Employees get to choose different options among medical, dental, life insurance, LTD, a medical flexible spending account and a dependent care flexible spending account. Employees who become disabled receive short-term disability for the first six months and then go onto LTD. Disabled employee continue to participate in the plan until they have two consecutive calendar years of disability, then they go onto the retiree benefit plan.

Company X's 125 plan provides that if an employee is on disability, while s/he will be provided a ballot to elect optional coverages, this election will not become effective until the employee returns to active status. Assuming that the FSAs do not continue during disability. Are there any problems under the 125 plan rules with this approach?

A client had late deposits, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the calculation could not be done in time so we filed Form 5558 to request an extension for the 5330 along with a check to cover the taxes that would be due. Now that we have finally finished the calcuation, there is an overpayment of taxes. How do you go about getting this back? The instructions to the form 5330 say to file an amended return. Well how do you file an amended return when you haven't even filed the original?

Is it permissible for employees to fund an account in a cafeteria plan on a pre-tax basis to be reimbursed for the following expense:

1) insurance for a dependent who is in college? I have read that the policy must be an "individual policy," however, I wasn't sure if because the expense is a Code Section 213(d) expense because it is a medical expenses of a dependent whether it could be reimbursed through a cafeteria plan if a separate account was established for the reimbursement of "other insurance"

2) I think I have read elsewhere that no Medicare insurance (Medicare Part B, Medigap, etc.) is NOT reimbursable through a cafeteria plan even if a separate account is established, is this so?

Any guidance/cites is greatly appreciated!

that new members "samadams" and "cbrewer1" both registered on the same day?

Hmmm.