A Registered Investment Advisor performs the buys and sells for retirement plans. Up until now they have been “eating” the charge for mailing out confirmations of trades charged by the broker/dealer back office. They wish to start passing this charge along to the retirement plans.

Does anyone have an idea on how to charge a fee to the specific individual(s) for the transaction(s) as a whole? I do not want to post it as a normal fee to all participants in the plan since only those involved in the transaction should pay the fee.

I have talked with Relius support and they do not know of a way to accomplish this.

Profit Sharing plan had 11 eligible participants at begining of Plan Year. At 12/31, the following occurred.

2 eligible HCE's

2 eligible NHCE's

7 Terminated NHCE's

1 Terminated HCE

Question is regarding vesting. Should the terminated particpants be given 100% vesting?

Thanks.

We have a plan that has over $100,000 in Israeli Bonds as an investment. Does anyone know if these would be classified as "Qualifying Plan Assets".

I have a client interested in a single life DB plan. I am a DC kinda guy and don't have a lot of DB experience. Can anyone provide information on this product?

I am trying to quantify what makes this possible, what could prohibit this type of plan, and generally any information I can gather.

Any help would be appreciated!

Jim

If an employer establishes a wellness program and offers a "reward" in the form of cash or cash equivlency (e.g., a gift certificate) is the reward includable in gross income?

Thanks in advance!

Hospital maintains defined contribution plan and a 457 plan. Both plans constitute governmental plans, as that term is defined in ERISA. We had advised client it was exempt from Title I of ERISA (except for trust requirement), etc. Consultant has now advised client that it should voluntarily ELECT to be covered by ERISA in order to obtain protection of 404©. Can a governmental plan "elect" to be covered by ERISA?

Can anyone point me to recent revenue rulings or other guidance that addresses whether an employee separates from service when he works for years at an agency, terminates employment, and comes back the next week as an independent contractor? I work for a state agency, and our employee is a member in the state's defined benefit plan. We believe there was separation from service and that the employee should be entitled to a distibution from the plan. However, the plan is saying there was no separation from service. Thanks for any information you can provide.

a bank has maintained a psp since 1987 and it was updated in 2003. current assets are right at 1 million, annual contributions are appx. 100,000 and some new HCE's will become eligible this year.

the bank is currently under a "cease and desist" order from the federal examiners and has been in work out mode for about one year. prior management has been released, new management is in place and progress has been made.

a few questions: 1) could the bank make use of the current profit sharing plan to purchase bank stock as a plan asset? would there be any limits to manage these purchases? 2) they are also exploring as an option a leveraged ESOP or KSOP, would the "cease and desist" negatively impact the options under this type of plan, especially since it would be leveraged?

basically the bank officers and the board want to establish a mechanism to issue and control voting rights for the controlling interest shares of the bank. the current number of shares outstanding is 200,000; 16,250 shares are currently owned by the board members; the current share value is $65; book value is $62.25; number of shares needed to maintain control of the bank by the board via the plan is 51% of the 200,000.

thanks.

Situation is this: a DC "plan" (I use this term loosely) was established in the late 90's by a dot-com ER. It does not even have a plan document so obviously no determination letter exists or was applied for, although there is a formal trust document with basic terms for ER contributions. The ER made about a year's worth of contributions to a bank account set up for the trust but then went belly-up soon thereafter. Former EEs recently reappeared and want funds, but the bank won't distribute monies without authorizing resolution.

Any suggestions as to how this debacle should be handled? What would termination procedure be? Would going to the Service to try to straighten this out be more trouble than its worth? As always, any thoughts are welcomed and very much appreciated.

We have a plan that is being sponsored by an S-Corporation and has a participating C-Corp as part of a controlled group of corporations. If the owners of the S-Corp are working and being paid from the participating C-Corp, which is also owned by the same owners, can they participate in the Section 125 Plan? Does the fact that they are more than 2% owners of the S-Corp preclude them from participating anyway regardless of where they are being paid? They will not receive any compensation from the S-Corp.

Any help would be appreciated.

What are the chances of Congress extending the Age-50 Catch-ups after EGTRRA expires? What are the reasons for not raising the contribution limits for all employees at that time? Younger workers/savers are being treated unfairly -- talk about discriminating against NHCEs. If Gen X is a cohort of slackers, what are the legislators worried about? The extra hours they won't be working and the extra money they won't be saving?

I've been looking at Code section 105(h)(5) and the definition of highly compensated individual. Subsection © says "among the highest paid 25 percent of all employees..."

The question I have is how to define "paid." I can't find anything in the regs that defines compensation or pay for this purpose.

Can someone tell me how you define compensation for these purposes?

Thanks.

We have a situation wherein an employee's hours have dropped such that he is considered part-time. Part-time employees are eligible to participate in the medical plans, however, the hours he is working are not sufficient to cover the premiums. I know that under 1.125-4, an employee may change his elections if he goes to part-time only if the change effects his eligibility under the plan. The change does not effect his eligibility, but his pay is not sufficient to cover the premiums. Any thoughts? Obviously if his pay isn't enough to cover it, the premiums will not be sent. Has anybody dealt with this situation before?

Our firm does a small amount of recordkeeping for a business that is asking us for either a SAS70 or something comparable they can provide to their regulatory agency. We don't have a SAS70, so is there something we can provide instead?

When a multiemployer plan fails to meet the minimum contribution requirement (MCR), then excise taxes are imposed upon the contributing employers. The taxes start out a 5% of the deficiency, but can grow to 100%. The taxes go to the IRS, so the funding problem still continues. Can the trustees of a multiemplyer plan legally require the employers to contribute more money than what is required in the CBA in order to meet the MCR?

My company has a medical reimbursement plan. Recently, we were sold to another company and will have their plan available to us, so the old plan is being terminated.

I had made my election earlier in the year based on having high expenses toward the end of the year, so have not yet incurred enough expenses to be reimbursed the full amount that I have had deducted from pay.

So, my question is, if a plan terminates and there is unused money in my account, can it be forfeited, or am I somehow entitled to be reimbursed? I don't see the logic in my having to forfeit dollars because the plan has ended.

Thank you.

I recently had a CPA send me a DB/DC proposal provided to one of his clients by a TPA firm. He is an aquaintance and knows that I work as a TPA (i only deal with DC plans but he doesnt know that) and he wanted me to take a look at the design and let him know if it is legitimate.

I don't have all of the facts, because the proposal information I received seemed incomplete, but the facts that I can see are:

41 eligible employees

6 of the eligible are owners of the company

3 of the employees are also highly compensated

32 remaining eligible employees are NHCE.

The DB plan covered only the 6 owners at 50% of their AMC. Retirement date of 65 with a 25 year benefit accrual.

The DC plan covered all the other employees. I can't recall the contribution percentage, but it was a flat % in somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of pay. There was no overlapping coverage between the plans.

They did not include any discrimination testing with the proposal. When I asked the CPA friend to obtain the testing, I received a 410(b) and 401(a)(4) testing that showed that the DC plan passed everything and that the DB plan passed nothing. They included one sentence in the email saying that the plans would be combined for non-discrim testing at a later date.

My questions are these (please keep in mind, I have limited working DB knowledge):

1) Doesn't the DB plan have to pass 401(a)(26) so that the DB plan has to cover at least 41*.4 = 17 employees?

2) Can the plans be combined for non-discrimination testing or must each plan pass on its own?

3) The TPA firm uses Datair (which i am not familiar with) and it has 6 different tests. Annual with and w/o permitted disparity, accrued-to-date with and without permitted disparity, and equivalent allocation with and without permitted disparity. Which of these tests must it pass? Any of them, all of them? a specific one?

4) Any other input or something I am missing? I figure I am likely missing something.

We are getting conflicting information. There is an adopting employer of a multiple employer plan with a plan year of 01/01-12/31. The adopting employer has elected a safe harbor match for 2004, and now wants to un-adopt the multiple employer plan and begin a new single employer plan effective 07/01/2004.

The question is -- can the employer keep the safe harbor matching provision for the short plan year in the single employer plan and have, in effect, safe harbor matching contributions for all participants throughout 2004 in two different plans? There would be no overlap in deferral contributions. The deferrals and match in the mulitiple employer plan would cease before deferral and matching contributions in the single employer plan begin.

If they cannot convert a safe harbor adoption in the multiple employer plan to a safe harbor single employer plan, why not? It seems that the continuation of the safe harbor provisions are a benefit to the plan participants.

Thanks!

A DC plan provides a base contribution of 8% of eligible pay for participants with over 5 years of service and 3% of eligible pay for all other participants, plus an excess contribution of 5.7% of pay above the Taxable SS Wage Base for participants with over 5 years of service and 3% of pay above the Taxable SS Wage Base for all other participants.

Does this plan meet the broadly available allocation rates exception of the cross-testing gateway allocation requirement?

If not, is the only way to meet the gateway requirement is to provide the lesser of 5% or 1/3 the allocation rate of the HCE with the highest allocation rate?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Should a QDRO be used to assign an interest in a SEP IRA to a former spouse in a divorce proceeding or is it like an IRA where the assignment language is included in the divorce judgement? Thanks for you help.