Participant's atty. has requested a form QDRO from the plan. The plan has no form QDRO available, however, was considering responding with a checklist of the technical requirements of a QDRO for the participant's atty. to consult when drafting the dro. Any problems with that approach?

I have a few questions: I'm wondering if there is a difference between Trad and Roth IRA's and how they are inherited.

Does 100% get distributed to the children?

What is a Stretch IRA and how does it work?

Is it different if you have a 401k?

Thanks it for now. Thanks for all the reply!

We are a S-Corporation. If the corp pays the health plan for the owners can they offer this coverage to their employees at their cost. In Other words, does the S-Corporation have to pay all or part of the empoyees premium?

We have a client with almost 5000 employees (including union, part-time, temporary, full-time, etc.). Of this number, around 1000 are actually full-time according to their definition. They currently only offer benefits to full-time employees.

They want to add a cafeteria plan with FSAs and only want full-time people to be eligible. However, for the other 4000 employees, they want to extend some voluntary benefits to them on an after-tax basis.

For non-discrimination testing purposes, would they need to include part-time and temporary employees in the testing pool? Also, would offering voluntary, after-tax benefits to the part-time and temporary pose any problems from a compliance standpoint? (The same voluntary benefits will also be offered to the full-time employees but on a pre-tax basis through the cafeteria plan.)

Thanks!

A plan sponsor discontinued making matching contributions a couple years ago. Can the match forfeitures now be used to reduce plan expenses? The plan document states that match forfeitures are used to reduce future matching contributions, but really doesn't address this issue.

For the past 5 years or so (since the plan has been in existence), one participant had a life insurance account set up that has a monthly deposit of his employee contributions. We were unaware of this separate account but had been reporting the correct contribution amounts (just showing it going into the other deferral account with the rest of the plan assets).

Do I go back and amend all those 5500's or how do I now start reporting this life insurance account? It has a balance of approx. $1800 so our past values of plan assets have been off. I'm just not sure how far to go back or where I should fix it.

Any advice you can provide is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Rachel

Large plan with REA (J&100%) death benefit for married participants but no death benefit for unmarrieds wants to address perceived inequity and is looking for suggestions. Plan is sponsored by a University. Plan has no lump sum provision (over $5,000) except that the REA death benefit is available as a lump sum if under $10,000.

Two options might be paying survivor portion of a 10 C&C and also paying 50% of the PVAB to a beneficiary.

Any other ideas? What might be typical of a large plan unmarried death benefit that wouldn't drive HR bonkers with paperwork? (Non-union)

Thanks for any suggestions.

I am trying to print out participant benefit statements from Relius Administration 8.2. I am working on a plan in which I have an Employer Safe Harbor Discretionary Contribution and a normal Employer discretionary contribution. Relius is not able to make out the vesting difference since they are both created under the employer source.

Has anybody gone through this? Has anybody created correct statements?

Any drawbacks to allowing participants to opt for in-kind distributions where the trustee oversees the investment of the general plan assets, i.e., no directed investment accounts? Employer is considering allowing for distributions to be in cash OR IN-KIND, instead of in cash only. The election is to be made by the participant. Any negatives to allowing for in-kind distributions in this situation?

A current 401(K) plan that I presently administer has new employee's who are coming from another 401(K) plan and want to roll over their money along with life insurance policy's that they had from the previous plan. The policy's have been paid in full.

Is it possible to do a trustee to trustee transfer of the life insurance policy's to the new employer's plan?

Two part question - 1) If two participants are actually paid out (checks made) on January 3 of 2003, does that require that a final 5500 be filed for 2003? and 2) The instructions talk about a final 5500 after all participants have been paid out but we have a case of funds being left over for the specific purpose of paying the trustee's fee. can the date the trustee fees are paid out be used as the date for the final 5500 or must you use the date the last participant is paid out?

What recourse does a former employee have to rectify the failure of a former employer to offer a 401k to the former employee despite availability to all other employees. Should the former employee pursue a claim through the DOL or IRS?

Our plan previously described eligible beneficiaries as a "legal spouse." We have formerly allowed employees to claim common law spouses as beneficiaries. We would like to change our plan to state that only legally married spouses can be beneficiaries under the plan. How do we do this? Does is matter what the state law is? The state where the plan is administered does not recognize common law, but we have employees in another state that does recognize common law. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have a Roth IRA (opened in 1998 - approx. $18,700.00). Taxes were paid over 4 year period. I put a Company 401 Distribution of approx. $2500.00 into a regular IRA in 2002. I am not happy with the investment company I am dealing with.

Can I cancel both IRA's with this company and put most of the Roth portion into I-Bonds, keeping the remainder free, then take the Traditional IRA and add some of the money left over from the roth to it and start another Roth?

Would there be any penalities or taxes due on any of this?

Thank you

JWright

Please, I need help getting started. My husband worked 20+ yrs for Orlando City Hall as an administrative assistant. We were married all that time, but divorced some years after he retired. He died a few years ago. City Hall said he opted to exclude me from the pension plan. I don't recall signing away my right to part of it. I'm 62 now and qualify as a low- income senior. Can yall please coach me on how to get started finding my legal rights there, if any? Thanks much.

Hi. Does anyone have an issues checklist they use in performing a legal review of administrative services contracts (BC, Kaiser, etc.) for self-insured health plans?

Thanks.

card

The Portman-Cardin Bill HR 1776- Pension Preservation and Retirement Expansion Act includes a provision reducing the vesting schedule for defined benefit plans. Does this include state workers defined benefit plans also? I work for the State of New Jersey and am enrolled in the PERS pension plan which currently requires 10 years of service in order to be vested.

Thank you for your assistance.

May

anyone know the difference in a "common" vs "collective" trust?

If an IRA owner dies before the RBD, can a specified beneficiary force distribution of the entire IRA to himself or herself in a lump sum?

I am reviewing a pension distribution for a participant.

A plan provides an offset based on a family soc sec offset. never seen this anywhere else before.

This is where the retiree's offset is based on a soc sec benefit that is greater than his own individual benefit due to an increase based on the spouse's higher soc sec benefit.

anyway the plan provides a basis socs sec offset untila ge 62 and then adds an additional offset at age 62 as a result of the spouse's soc sec benefit.

the plan says that in no way can the actual offset exceed what's is permitted by the Code.

Well it appears that the actual offset exceeds what is the maximum amount permitted by 401(l) at the early ret age of 57 and again after the additional family soc sec offset at age 62. This occurred because the offsets weren't reduced much from the age 65 offset and would exceed the 401(l) required max offsets at the early ret ages.

My question is: does my logic appear solid and when they refer to the max permitted by code is it generally reasonable to apply 401(l)? I am presuming at this time that 411 accrual rules are not violated. Of course they may just mean that it passes 401(a)(4) non descrimination and the hell with 401(l).

Curious to get any thoughts on this.

Thanks.