My company provides a cafeteria plan for employees. The cafeteria plan provides the following separate benefits: a group health plan with Blue Cross, a self-insured dental plan, a fully-insured vision plan, and a self-funded health FSA. All of the individual health plans in the cafeteria plan have "receipts" less than $5 million which means we have until April 14, 2004 to comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

I would like to know if we could just amend the cafeteria plan document agreeing that the plan sponsor will comply with HIPAA; OR do we have to amend all of the plan documents of the individual group health plans in the cafeteria plan?

Thanks!

Can a company that wants to terminate their 401k profit sharing plan as of 12/31/03. Instead, they want to adopt a SIMPLE IRA plan effective 1/1/04.

Can they terminate their 401k PSP effective 12/31/03, assuming no contributions or withholding was done in 2004?

Can they implement a SIMPLE IRA plan beginning in 1/1/04 or is there a waiting period that must be completed after the 401(k) PSP termination?

If a terminated participant with a loan balance wants to roll his/her account balance out of the plan, does the loan have to repaid first OR does it simply become a taxable distribution once the balance is rolled into an IRA or another retirement plan?

Cross tested plan - If the allocation percentage for a particular year is the same percentage for both groups, do you have to test it?

Does anyone know if there is anywhere in Relius to key ytd contribution information for testing purposes on a takeover plan??

Husband and wife are doctors with minor aged children. Each spouse owns 100% of their own separate medical practice with no shared responsibilites, etc. He is an S corp, she is a sole proprietor. They both have employees. I believe they are a controlled group. We don't want to cover the wife or her employees. I am thinking this may work if the plan passes coverage requirements.

Are there any other tests we have to satisfy? Is there any other way to exclude them?

More questions about the terminating DC plan.

The participants in the terminating plan will become participants in the new employer's plan as soon as they can get things converted over for payroll purposes, which could take a few weeks. So there will be a few weeks when no deferrals take place. And since the terminating plan is doing a 5310 submission, distributions won't be made until the determination letter is issued.

Loan payments must continue to be made during this interim period, which could be several months, but no new loans or distributions will be processed.

Does that mean that a blackout notice is required?

We're developing a High Deductible Health Plan for one of our clients to use with a Health Care Savings Account.

I know that a HDHP can be offered under a Cafeteria Plan, but I have a question about Change in Status rules.

A person may not have an HSA if they are covered under any other plan. The group wants to allow an employee to change from the HDHP to another plan offered by the employer if they become covered under their spouse's plan.

While other coverage is a problem for the HSA, it does not affect the eligibility requirements under the HDHP, and I don't believe it falls under the permissible change in status rules already in place. I think the employee would have to wait to make a plan change at open enrollment.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Assuming the participants whereabouts are known, is there any instance where a Profit Sharing plan can force pay a participant whose balance is over $5,000?

I am new at this, can I use dependent day care expenses for an elderly parent if I am claming him as a dependant, he is living with us and care is required?

If you discover a loan should have been deemed in a previous tax year, do you have to issue the 1099 for the year the loan went into default, or the year in which you actually deem the loan? For example, a participant takes a loan in Jan 2003, and does not make any payments. Loan should have been deemed by June 2003, but was just discovered in 2004. Can we issue a 2004 1099? What if it crossed many years?

Thanks!!

Help! I have a cash balance plan with an accumulated funding deficiency and an owner who is retiring. I have a sneaking suspicion that when an HCE takes a distribution from an underfunded plan a bond needs to be posted. Am I right? If so does anyone have the cite for this requirement? Thanks for your assistence in advance.

An employer is planning on terminating his DC plan prior to the sale of his business to another company. He's concerned that many of the participants have outstanding plan loans that they would not be able to repay on short notice.

The purchasing company offers a similar type of DC plan. If the purchaser's plan permits, can the employees roll their loans over to the purchaser's plan to avoid having taxable distributions?

Plan A would like to change there vesting schedule for all employer contributions from a 6 year to 100% immediate vesting. The problem is they would like to do it with an effective date, stating everyone that is still employed with company A on the effective date will have the 100% vesting. Everyone that has terminated from the company before the effective date will be still on the 6 year.

Can they do this?

I thought that when the amendment takes place it will change for everyone that still has money in the plan, terminated or not.

Please help.

Jesse

Can an employer if he has 2 stores that are under one plan document and one store wants to offer ONLY premium components and one wants to offer premium AND medical reimbursement. Can you do this under one plan document?

Would you have to do 2 plan documents? Or would they all have to be offered the same components under 1 plan document??

Thanks

Stacey L. Pederson, CRPS

JCCS Employee Benefits Division

Does anyone know if filed Forms 5500 are available anywhere on line? DOL/EBSA website?

A 50% owner of LLC A with a DB plan is also a 33.333% owner of LLC B. LLC B is not related to or an adopting employer. Can income from LLC B be used for benefit purposes of LLC A's DB plan without including the the two other owners of LLC B in LLC A's DB plan?? Thanks.

A school employee is allowed to purchase up to five years of retirement benefits on a pre-tax basis. The school also has a 403(b) plan, of which this employee is a participant. Is the pre-tax purchase of the retirement benefits included in the overall annual 402(g) limit ($13,000 + $3,000 catch-up for 2004)?

I'm looking at a proposal for a 412i plan, providing a benefit at the 415 limit (surprise) for the sole participant. Assume for the moment that the illustrated insurance is incidental. Doesn't the projected retirement benefit need to be provided by an annuity contract currently owned by the plan?

The proposal is assuming that a side-fund is maintained and the annuity contract not actually purchased until ARA. The annuity is projected to cost $X at ARA. The insurance has a guaranteed cash value of $Y at ARA. The current contribution to the side fund is equal to ($X - $Y) divided by a temporary annuity factor between now & ARA. Presumably this calculation is adjusted each year to take into account changes in the $Y value due to the actual current insurance cash value.

Now, I haven't seen a lot of these (can you tell?), but I would have guessed that an actual annuity contract would have to be purchased at the onset. Premiums for this annuity contract would be discounted to take into account the projected (guaranteed) cash value of the insurance (because otherwise there would be $ left over after the maximum 415 benefit was paid at ARA).

Comments?

I am not too familiar with the the actual restatement process (dates, etc.) but feel the following is a problem. When working on the year end testing, etc. I requested a restated (prototype) adoption agreement for a plan and was told it was not updated yet. Didn't these have to be updated sometime last year?

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.