Is is permissible to merge two 457(b) plans maintained by one tax-exempt employer into one 457(b) plan without triggering adverse tax consequences to participants? There is no severance of employment of participants, therefore the 457 regs regarding transfer of assets would not be satisified. Any thoughts on whether a merger would be permissible when the corporation remains the same (no acquisition or divestiture) and there is a 457(b) merger with participants continuing in employment? It is unclear to me whether 457 regs on transfer of assets also intend to cover plan merger situations.

Employer had late deposit of employee deferrals during 2002. Accordingly, lost gain was calculated and allocated to each participant who had deferrals during that period. The amount was fairly minimal, so most participants received $.01. However, when making the contribution for the lost gain, it was discovered that many participants had terminated and received a distribution. The investment company will not open an account for a participant to invest $.01.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to apprcoah this? My initial thought is to dump into forfeiture account. Any thoughts are welcomed.

Hello,

I am trying to find (or develop) a list of cash balance lawsuits. I'd like to find something with basic information about the cases (name of case, quick summary, current status of the case). Do you know of any publicly available sources that would contain this information?

If I can't find an available list of cases, I'll have to create my own. So far, I've found information about the cases listed below. Do you know of any other cases involving cash balance plans?

*Cooper, et al. v. The IBM Personal Pension Plan and IBM Corporation

*Berger v. Xerox Corporation Retirement Income Guarantee Plan

*Lyons vs. Georgia-Pacific

*Engers v. AT&T Managment Pension Plan, C.A. 98-3660 (D.N.J.)

*Amara v. Cigna Pension Plan, C.A. 01-2361 (D.Conn.)

*Edsen v. Retirement Plan, Bank of Boston

*Aull v. Cavalcade Pension Plan

*Eaton v. Onan Corporation

*Corcoran v. Bell Atlantic Corp.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Patrick

When handing out the SAR's to participants- does the Schedule A (& D?) need to be attached or just available if they request it?

Thanks,

Rachel

We have a 401(k) plan. Deferrals only with a 3% safe harbor match. No match. No ps contribution. Both Highly and nonhighly get safe harbor once eligibility is met.

Question: I know I don't need to worry about the acp/adp testing. What about the average benefit testing?

I have a defined benefit client who is a chiropractor with fewer than 25 participants. Is he subject to PBGC premium payments, coverage, regulation, etc? Thanks.

Question- The plan document is a Profit Sharing Standardized Adoption Agreement. The client would like to change to a Non-Standardized Adoption Agreement where participants would have to be employed on the last day of the plan year and work 1000 hours to receive an employer contribution. Can this be done?

Thanks for any input.

I am told that if an Insurance Company recieved compensation from the Plan >$5000 they need to be reported here. What code should be reported for them, it is an Insurance Company like Manulife.....Any help on this schedule would be appreciated b/c this is the first on I have done..

Thanks,

Carson

A question so dumb, nobody's asked it it seems!

Do non-participating participants get a copy of the SPD, or is the requirement confined only to those who are actively participating, or those who are beneficiaries?

Please help me understand the implications of including employees employed in a foreign country in a domestic qualified plan.

May employees of a foreign subsidiary of a domestic plan sponsor participate in the domestic sponsor's qualified plan?

If so, this arrangement would seem to make sense in the case of employer contributions. It does not, however, seem to make sense in the case of 401(k) plans, as the employees of the foreign subsidiary realize no tax benefit by contibuting to a 401(k) plan; presumably, they would be taxed by the foreign country prior to contributing, then taxed by the US when they take a distribution. Please comment.

Finally, IRC § 406(a) and Treas Reg § 1.406-1(b)(1)(i)

discuss a domestic employer entering into an agreement with the IRS to permit the employer's foreign employees to participate in the employer's domestic plan. Is there any guidance on how to enter into such an agreement?

Any tax-related issues with participant naming an adult as custodian for minor child under Uniform Transfers to Minors Act as the contingent beneficiary behind the spouse in a PSP? Thanks.

We have a client who has a calendar year SH PS 401k plan. About a year ago, the client transferred in surplus pension assets from a terminated DB plan. We have slowly been using the surplus towards the SH match.

Now, due to the economy, the client is wanting to terminate the PS plan and distribute the remaining $28,000 in surplus assets to the participants. Is there any particular method in distributing this money? I wasn't sure if it could be used an an Employer Non-Discretionary Contribution, or as an additional Employer Match.

The terminated DB plan recently came up for a random audit by the PBGC. Should we wait until the PBGC closes the audit before adopting a resolution to terminate the PS plan?

Can a SH PS plan be terminated mid year? We were hoping to get all the assets paid out before 12/31/03 to avoid going into another accounting year.

Also the client may want to reestablish the SH PS 401k plan in a year or two if his business picks up. Would this cause a problem?

Thanks for any help.

I have a client who has an overfunded DB plan. Client is 73 years old. Benefit is limited by 3 year average compensation limit so benefit can not increase. There is about half a million excess assets in plan. How can we get rid of excess to lessen posssible excise tax?

Facts:

Plan Participant dies.

Spouse if the designated beneficiary on most recent D.Beneficiary form.

Spouse is deceased.

Daughter is beneficiary of spouse.

Daughter completed a distribution form requesting a lumb sum payment from plan of participant vested benefit less outstanding loan balance.

My questions are:

Is the beneficiary the estate of the deceased spouse or the daughter?

If the estate, who makes the distribution election?

Who gets 1099ed for the outstanding loan that is "defaulted"

Thanks in advance for any help

An individual IRA owner received a divorce decree from the court. It did not address the IRA assets.

Some years later ( maybe 3) the IRA owner and his wife signed an agreement to split the IRA assets. They both signed the agreement. But it was not approved by the court/judge. Is this a proper divorce decree under 408(d)(6)?

Thanks in advance

Is it possible to do a QTFB program in-house? Here's the problem, we're a small company and want to institute a QTFB program, problem is, our payroll administrator wants to charge us an arm and a leg to just set up the plan - let alone administer it.

Is it common to do this in-house? And if so, how would you technically go about doing it if you have a payroll administrator (without incurring the charges from them for administering it). We know about the written instrument requirement and the limits, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Must an employer who maintains a 403(b) plan that consists exclusively of salary deferrals allow collectively-bargained employees to participate. My understanding was that unlike qualified plans, they could not be excluded from participation. However, section 4.72.13.6.1 of the Section 403(b) audit guidelines says that they can be excluded. When did the rules change (or was it always that way??)

In a DB plan, if the death benefit is defined as the pvab must you pay at 417(e) rates or can you define the pvab for death benefit purposes as the actuarial equivalence?

Plan year end is other than 12/31, but begins in 2002. Are two EGTRRA amendments required? One for 12/31/02 and the other for the regular plan year?

Linda Michals

New 401a profit sharing plan, first year filing.

Are they covered under the 410(b)(6)© acquisition or disposition rule?