I was wondering why I'd been listed with the gold cup for yesterday when there were at least three other folks with the same 2 "reputation points".  Then I refreshed the page and our names were shuffled, so I was then listed with the silver.  Refresh again, and listed fourth.  Then back to first.

I surmise all our profiles say we last "won" the day on May 24th.  I had wondered if there were some underlying tiebreaker algorithm in play.

Honestly, it's not a vanity thing!  🤪

--bri

Hi

Testing 2 plans together for all.

DB and 401k/NESH/PS plans.

Top heavy provided under DC plan only. All participants benefit under both plans.

Key employee is getting 0.5% accrual in the DB and 3% allocation of NESH (plus full deferral), no additional PS for the key.

Combined gateway minimum is 4% (including 3% NESH)

What must I provide to all non-HCE's as additional PS allocation, 1% or 2%?

My vote is 2% but just wanted to check.

Thanks

Hello everyone. Section 508 of PPA requires the value of each investment to which assets in the participants' account have been allocated to be disclosed for all defined contribution plans. Can anyone steer me in the direction of court rulings regarding this subject matter? Thanks.

This is the first time that I've seen this- a DC participant submitted a "DRO"  in which a six figure sum of his DC account will be transferred to his spouse.  Participant and spouse are married, not seeking a dissolution of marriage and as far as we know, it is not intended for spousal support.  A quick Google search shows that there are some practitioners promoting in marriage qdros as a means of gaining access to pension or DC funds (likely without those pesky plan terms getting in the way). 

I'm just scratching the surface of my review, but it's hard for me to imagine that this was never tried in the past 30 some years. I seem to recall that there might have been cases of fake divorces just so people could access their pension accounts- why bother going through a fake divorce if you could simply claim a marital property transfer???

I'm curious as to what other people have seen/think of these?

6 doctors each had their own tax entity and shared employees who were all on the payroll of a separate tax entity.  One of the doctors (Doctor A) maintained a 401(k) plan in 2021 and covered employees for the portion of pay allocated to her based on their time worked for her and all hours worked for all doctors were counted in meeting eligibility.   I'm told none of the other doctors funded any type of plan, no Simple,  nor SEP.

They were convinced to form a group in which they are all equal shareholders and want to have one 401(k) plan covering all doctors and all eligible employees.  It will provide only a safe harbor match.  The plan has not yet started for 2022 and so there has been no plan funded by any of the doctors yet for 2022.  The goal is to have it set up by July 1, 2022.  

The thought is the group would assume sponsorship of Dr. A's frozen plan.  I wouldn't think there'd be any issue with safe harbor treatment for 2022 being adoption by a newly formed entity.  I'm also wondering about the new plan tax credit available for each of 3 years.  Seems that would require the start up of a new plan and closure of the old.  Yet for one of the 6 doctors, the plan is not new under her tax entity.  I may just not mention the tax credit if it is questionable and leave that to their tax advisor, if he even has that on his radar.

Comments as to safe harbor treatment for 2022, the tax credit?

Thank you for your comments.

Client has an auto-enrollment 401(k) plan.  They did a QNEC for a group of participants for missed deferral opportunity a few months ago and just realized some of them received an amount that was too high.  All impacted participants are NHCEs.  I'm not finding a correction for this.  Let the participants know of the error and forfeit?

Thanks for your help!

Have a plan sponsor who is acquiring another business in an Asset Sale.  The seller's 401k plan will be terminated.  The Buyer's plan has been amended to allow for service with the Seller towards vesting/eligibility in the Buyer's 401k plan.  The Buyer also wants to use the seller's Terminating plan participant deferral (pre-tax or roth) elections to immediately allow the seller's plan participants to defer into the Buyer's 401k plan (at least those meeting eligibility in the Buyer's plan).

Is this allowable?  I would think that one plan participant's deferral election cannot apply to another company's 401k, but I'm grasping....  

I'm hoping there is a workaround that I'm not thinking about though or something in the regs that would allow the buyer's plan to use the seller's plan deferral elections.  

Would the answer change if the seller's plan was merging into the buyer's 401k?

All help is greatly appreciated!  

I'm probably missing something obvious. A PS plan defines a year of service for eligibility as 1,000 hours. Actual eligibility for PS contributions is three months of continuous service. For purposes of applying the one year holdout rule, does a rehired employee have to complete 1,000 hours or three months to rejoin the plan?

I have a client (100% owner) who maintains both a 40(k) plan and a defined benefit plan. He will be having an associate age 59 joining the company later on this year earning >300,000 with no ownership in the company. The owner (age 49) wants to minimize the amount the company would have to put in either plan for this associate. Here are a couple of alternatives:

1) As a highly compensated employee, exclude him from both plans.

2) Exclude him from the DB plan. Include him in the 401(k) (comparability plan). The plan currently allows for a discretionary contribution, salary deferrals  and a Safe Harbor match. We can zero out his discretionary contribution, preclude him (agreement outside the plan) from making any salary deferrals which, in turn, would negate any safe harbor match. 

Let's us assume that in both cases discrimination requirements are met. Then In both cases, there would be no employer contributions for him.  Comments.

Would appreciate a sanity check here. Employer has a long-term bonus plan. Company and individual performance from, say, 1/1/21 - 12/31/23 determine the amount of bonus paid after 12/31/23. Generally participants must be employed on the last day of the performance period to be eligible. Participants who die, become disabled, retire (at a fixed age/service), or are involuntarily terminated during the performance period will receive pro rata payments at the same time as all other participants. Employer does not calculate the final amounts until after March 15 of the year following the end of the performance period, so all payments are subject to 409A. 

What practical impact does this have if the plan uses the year following the end of the performance period as a fixed payment date (as opposed to trying to pay before 3/15/24)? 

It would not allow payments to be made earlier than, or later than, 2024, which is fine. There are no opportunities to further defer the payment. The substitution rules would apply, which can be managed. The six-month delay would apply, but no payments are triggered by a separation from service, only a fixed date. The plan could be aggregated with other plans for plan termination rules.  

It also seems that these rules would apply to participants terminating prior to 2023, even if the payments were made by 3/15/24 in the ordinary course (e.g., a participant who retired in 2022 would not meet the short-term deferral timeline in any event if payment was 3/15/24). 

None of these strike me as particularly difficult as long as the employer is aware they are constraining themselves in some ways. 

Am I missing something that would make this impractical?

I trying to get a sense of how long employers are prohibiting the re-hire of employees who have a 401k account and are under age 59 1/2 to support there is a true termination of employment versus a sham termination.  I have seen time periods that range from 3 months to 6 months and less often 12 months.  For this purpose, assume there is no pre-termination agreement between the employer and employee to re-hire.  Thanks!

Plan has a last day worked requirement in order to receive nonelective contributions.

However, participants that terminate employment on 12/31 (cal yr plan) are not eligible.

Never seen this, what is the justification? Do plan specs state clearly, must be active employee on last day of the plan year?

Hi

Not a 401k expert

401k plan with 3% NESH+PS

An employee erroneously was allowed to defer in 2021 as never met eligibility.

Got the refund timely, I am told

Totally excluded for 2021, correct?

Thank you

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Does this follow the same rules as qualified plans, or is there a whole separate regulatory scheme?

If enacted as it passed the House of Representatives, the “SECURE 2.0” bill [H.R. 2954] would require a new § 401(k) or § 403(b) salary-reduction agreement to include an automatic-contribution arrangement.

What do BenefitsLink neighbors think about this? Would you like the new requirement? Would you dislike it? And for either view, why would you like or dislike an automatic-contribution requirement?

A participant was working while they attained age 70.5 back in 1998.  They continued to work through 2008.  Each year, through 2004, the benefit was increased to reflect additional accruals.  After 2004, there were no increases. 

We're trying to figure out if the benefit should have been increased after 2004 through termination.  I seem to recall a test or rules of some sort for people working past 70.5 and receiving their benefit, something like comparing the present value of the benefit as if it was always being made to the accumulated value of benefits already paid, and if the difference was greater than you increase, otherwise you don't.  But, I can't seem to find this anywhere.

Does anyone recall this?
Thanks,

A plan sponsor wants to make profit-sharing contributions for the 2021 plan year to employees who did not meet the plan's eligibility criteria in 2021. There is no testing failure if they remain excluded.

Is it possible to amend the plan now to make the eligibility terms less restrictive? It seems like an -11(g) amendment would not work because it wouldn't be correcting a failure. Likewise, we're beyond the timeline for adopting a discretionary amendment.

If they received allocations anyway, despite the plan terms, how would everyone view a retroactive corrective amendment under SCP to conform to the plan's actual operations (i.e., retroactively loosen the eligibility terms for the profit-sharing component only)? Only non-HCEs are in the potentially expanded group. The expansion would not cover the deferral components so there wouldn't be an issue with their inability to defer in 2021.

Is there any other way to accomplish?

Appreciate any insights.

Client selling the assets of his company, effective 6/5/2022; all employees will be terminated, employee contributions cease as of that date.

Employer has yet to make the 3% safe harbor (always made after the end of the plan year), so the plan must stay open to receive those contributions. 

The buyer maintains a 401(k) to which all participants in seller plan will rollover, but the plan has a 60 day eligibility requirement,

Can't the seller's plan remain open for those 60 days??

One participant has an outstanding loan, to which no further payments can be made after the participant terminates.  The outstanding loan balance is a QPLO which can be rolled over, can't it just sit in the seller's plan until expiration of the 60 days?

The solution would be for buyer and seller to agree to waive the 60 day eligibility for employees of the seller's plan, but that has yet to be decided.

This isn't specific to IRAs, etc. but is an estate close-out issue.  Filing form 5495 to request an estate trustee's discharge of any personal liability after 9 months, I need to list and attach the returns for which this is requested, in this case forms 1040 and 1041.  The returns are filed, the 5495 asks for the IRS service center where they were filed.  1041 was mailed to Ogden, but the 1040 was filed electronically.  So in the service center box, should I put "filed electronically", or list the service center where the paper return would have otherwise been mailed?   IRS instructions are very brief and don't address this. 

Thanks.