If erroneous pension annuity payments from a defined benefit plan (no beneficiary or joint and survivor annuity at issue) are made following a retirant's death due to late death notification and the plan administrator is unable to recoup from the estate, would a 1099-R be issued to the estate (no information is available as to estate tax id)?  Is there a way to adjust the withholding that was submitted on future deposits or obtain a refund of the withheld amount-- through a 945-X (although instructions state it's limited to clerical errors) or other means-- because no party had a legally binding right to the payments after death?  This has to be a common scenario, yet I haven't found guidance directly addressing the death overpayment situation (only guidance addressing overpayments to living retirants/participants).   

So, you have Plan A sponsored by Employer A. Employer B signs on as a participating employer, but not a CG/ASG and thus a MEP.

Plan B winds down to one employee. Plan B is supposed to spin off, and then immediately terminate plan. Plan B employer never signs the paperwork to do this, and in the meantime, the one employee terminates employment, and the distribution is processed by plan A, where the assets were held.

The question is, does the spinoff still need to happen, and a first and final 5500 form be filed for Plan B? There are no assets to spinoff, and the temptation is strong to just ignore it, but it feels all wrong.

Anyone ever encountered such a situation?

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When would you use code 2D on line 9a?

I have a 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan where the employer also maintains a cash balance plan. Because the CBP was not PBGC covered in the first year, the 31% rule is applied; accordingly, the 401(a) feature of the 401(k) PSP is capped at 6%. My thought is this sounds exactly like "Plan benefits are subject to offset for retirement benefits provided in another plan or arrangement of the employer", but I've not swam these waters frequently and I'm not able to find any guidance on this code in particular.

I know that when you are testing both a 401(k)/Profit Sharing Plan and Cash Balance Plan together, the contributions to the Profit Sharing are limited to 6% of eligible compensation.  Does that 6% include any Safe Harbor Match that is made to the 401(k) Plan?  Or does it only apply to the Profit Sharing?

I think I'm confusing myself so I just want to make sure.

Thanks in advance!

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Good article - 

https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2025/08/revisiting-the-state-of-the-law-in-erisa-forfeitures-cases

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My husband and I recently divorced.  We had chose to each keep our own pension plans and change beneficiaries to our children from previous marriages.

Our settlement agreement stated we would each retain 100% of our individual pensions and beneficiary was to be revoked including any designation of each as a recipient to survivor benefits.

The settlement agreement also stated the court reserves jurisdiction to issue a QDRO.  And if the plan did not permit a change to beneficiary then a constructive trust would be setup to ensure the children would receive the pension benefits.

i worked for HP and their plan is a defined benefit pension plan which is managed by Fidelity.

i worked through Fidelity and kept hitting a brick wall. No change to beneficiary after beginning to draw from the pension.  Then a Fidelity agent suggested I get a QDRO which would address the beneficiary rights.  However, the third party company I was referred to said there was no delegation for beneficiary in the company QDRO.  Beneficiary changes were not allowed.

i contacted the companies HR department and found an HR manager who gave me some guidance on getting the beneficiary changed.  I needed to provide a letter of instruction and my final divorce judgement outlining the terms of the pension.

i provided this documentation and was denied a beneficiary change.  I asked the HR manager who would receive the pension benefits upon my death. And he stated it would remain my ex-husband.

i am going to try and appeal this decision.  Meanwhile has anyone encountered this type of denial before?  If so, have they had any success on subsequent tries?

I didn’t provide an updated beneficiary statement as I understood from Fidelity the reluctance is the payment is calculated based on my husbands age and life expectancy.  To make that a non issue I stated to just restore my full pension.

i do have a beneficiary designation form which has a notarized signature from my ex-husband stating he will agree to having his beneficiary rights revoked.

The beneficiary form includes trust names and individual names under the trust. Or the beneficiary names.

I've been doing some reading about Retirement Trusts.  Would using a Retirement Trusts work around this problem if I submitted the beneficiary form with a trust named?

if that fails and my ex-husband passes away how do I setup a constructive trust that will pass along his pension to his kids but not have to pay taxes on funds I won’t receive?

Thanks for your patience reading this!  Any advice is much appreciated!

Carole

Are plans allowed to pay annual service fees?

Are plans allowed to pay plan termination fees?

Are there any fees that the plan is not allowed to pay?

Non profit sponsoring a 401(k) plan had a status change and is now a church organization.  Does this make the existing 401(k) plan a "church plan" effective with that status change? Should their 5500 filings cease unless they make an election?   Is there a time frame by when the election must be made after the status change? 

Any advantages to becoming an electing church plan?

A recordkeeper’s set of IRS-preapproved documents states the user’s plan is governed, to the extent ERISA does not supersede, by “the laws of the state in which [the recordkeeper] is located[.]”

The recordkeeper is organized under Delaware law and its registered office is in Delaware.

But the principal office is in another State.

What does “is located” mean?

Is it Delaware? Or is it the other State?

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I have a former HCE who took a full distribution of his account last year when he retired. This year we found out that we failed ACP test and need to make corrective distributions. Do we need to cut the former HCE another check? Or is this corrected by deeming last year's distribution as the correction?

I'm looking at 1.401(k)-2(b)(2)(v), which says, in part: "If the entire account balance of an HCE is distributed prior to when the plan makes a distribution of excess contributions in accordance with this paragraph (b)(2), the distribution is deemed to have been a corrective distribution of excess contributions (and income) to the extent that a corrective distribution would otherwise have been required."

I think I am hung up on the "to the extent that a corrective distribution would otherwise have been required." Any thoughts about what that language is supposed to mean?

We have a client that has had someone working abroad for them for a number of years.  Technically they haven't been on payroll, since they were living outside the U.S.  They have now moved to the U.S. and are working as a normal W2 employee.

The question is, what do we need to put in the Plan Document to allow this person to participate in the Plan immediately?  Do we have to amend the Plan to say that participants working remotely gain immediate entry into the Plan (while other employees have to wait the typical 1 year)? 

The issue is that compensation is defined as W2 salary, so technically they haven't been included in the Plan.

Thanks for your help!

Have a Cash Balance Plan terminating, projected to have small amount of excess assets at time of distribution (no 415 issues, etc.).  The plan document just specifies that excess assets will be distributed "in a nondiscriminatory manner".

In this situation, the Plan only covers the 100% Owner and his son, so both are HCEs and Key Employees.  Typically have either allocated on the basis for a regular DB Plan based on present value of 1% of Average Salary times years of participation (maximum 5); in Cash Balance scenario have done same manner where say take 1% of compensation in last 5 years (so hypothetical additional Cash Balance) and allocated on that basis.

However, the language "in a nondiscriminatory manner" where only dealing with HCEs looks like we could do anything we wanted and comply, so say ALL excess assets could go the Owner, or ALL to the son, or however the client wanted to apportion. Any thoughts?

Plan has never contained after-tax not employer match provisions. Plan is adding an after-tax provision. Plan may add a discretionary match, but it won't be used in 2025. I think plan should still be able to use prior year testing and assume an NHCE rate of 3%. Is that correct? My only pause is that there won't actually be a match in 2025, just the after-tax.  

Thank you for any guidance.

Have a scenario where a county employed judge has a private business.

As a county employee she has a government provided pension plan.

Her private company is very profitable and will be for at least another 8 - 10 years.

Can her private company (an S-corp) sponsor a defined benefit plan for her as the only employee? Would her government provided pension plan benefits she accrued factor into what could be done with the private plan?

Thanks.