A participant in a SIMPLE IRA wants to make a traditional IRA contribution, and take the deduction. Is this possible?

Is a SIMPLE IRA considered a qualified plan for this purpose?

I work for a local county government and we have a FSA that is not a part of a cafiteria plan. The FSA is fully funded by employee payroll deductions. It seems to me that we are not paying for or providing health care as defined in HIPAA. Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions or guidence to offer regarding whether this needs to be covered by the privacy regulations of HIPAA.

I am looking for an executive compensation survey setting out 2002 data. I would like a survey that compiles data across industries and sets out the data for several categories of executives, includes geographic or regional information if possible, and includes information on salary and non-salary compensation. I am not looking for an industry-specific survey. Any thoughts on where I might find a survey report that includes the desired data at an economically feasible cost?

Thank you.

I have compiled the 2002 version of my little DOS program called the "Inte-Greater" -- it finds the best integration level for a corporate profit-sharing plan of 40 or fewer participants.

It also shows the amounts that should be allocated to the various participants' accounts.

Could anybody give it a whirl and compare the results to the allocation figures you get from your current administration software?

I think I've correctly implemented the 415 limits and the comp cap, but I'd love to have confirmation that your professional administration software is providing the same allocation figures.

The software (it's free) is here:

https://benefitslink.com/cgi-bin/inte-greater/

Thanks,

Dave Baker

Has the DOL issued an opinion in response to a request regarding ERISA preemption of CA wage withholding law? Is that request still pending (from 1999)? Does anyone have any experience with a California employer implementing negative 401(k) elections?

Help!

I have a client that wants to send participant checks through the IRS letter forwarding program- Has anyone tried this???

Any other successful methods for locating lost participants?

We are an employer that offers four diffrent health plans (combined premium >$5 mil.). One is an indemnity, one PPO, and two HMO's. My main concern is the experience rating that we recieve once a month for the indemnity plan. Since it contains the employee's or dependent's name, type of service (general such as drug, med/surg, etc.), and amount paid for the service, would this document be considered PHI under HIPAA regs?

I have done much reading and feel like I'm riding a pendulum (one source leads me to believe yes another no). I would appreciate any input from a source outside my web of confusion.

Thank you for any help or comments.

(I apologize for any spelling errors, I'm lost w/o a spellchecker)

Does anyone have experience with expenses related to evaluation and prescription costs associated with a clinical trial monitored by the FDA? We have documentation to support that insurance will not pay. Also because our claims department rejected the item for additional information, we have authorization from a physician that the expense is medically necessary. We know that 'experimental' treatments are not eligible, however, we have a signed statement from a physician to satisfy medical necessity, including prevention or treatment of a disease.

Anyone???...

I have a 401k plan who wants to lower it's early retirement age to 50 yrs old. can a 54 yr old take a distribution while still working w/out the 10% penalty? in otherwords, does becoming 50 become a distributable event in this plan?

I remember there being a % or table that you had to use in determine lost earnings on late deferrals as well as the 10% penalty. Anyone know that % and ruling?

I have a participant with an outstanding 401k loan who has just filed for Chapter 13. She is telling us that the judge ordered her to "suspend" payments on her 401k loan. She has not yet produced documentation of any judge's order.

The loan payments are made through automatic payroll deduction and it is my impression that we do not have to stop them--they are exempt from such rulings.

Can a judge's order/Chapter 13 filing be enough to suspend payments?

Any help is appreciated!

A 403(B) plan has a matching feature, subject to 401(m) testing. The level of the match is decided by collective bargaining. However, there are administrative employees covered by the plan who are non-union. The terms of the plan are the same for administrative employees and the union employees.

Do you conclude immediately that this plan is subject to mandatory disaggregation, so that the non-union employees must be tested separately? Or are there other factors to consider?

Anyone know of a good resource for the process of terminating a 401K plan?

Thanks,

Ronnie

If an employer is the beneficiary of a life insurance policy with respect to an employee, and the employer transfers the proceeds from the policy up to a certain limit to the employee's survivor upon the employee's death, are the benefits taxable to the survivor or would the exclusion under Section 101 apply to the transfer of life insurance proceeds as well? Or would this be considered a self-insured death benefit, the ($5,000) exclusion for which was repealed?

I'm looking for a good resource regarding the process of terminating a 401K plan. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Do retirees have grounds to sue a sponsor of a DB governmental plan for prospectively removing their annual COLA?

Having worked for several PEO including CNA and having access to a large 401k administrator (CNA Trust) and legal support, the real challenge is understanding that PEO's operated different styled 401k plans, with matching features and testing across all the co-employees. The IRS found this to be not to their liking and issued a ruling requiring PEO's to operate as MEWA's and fall under that guideline. (MEWA = Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements. The other issue is co-employment is not codified in any laws and the US DOL recently issued guidance saying from their view point and purposes the client of the PEO is the common law employer, primarily because the PEO may have paper control, but the worksite employer has day to day control.

The PEO business model is a great idea for small employers and can deliver complex programs at a lower tranaction cost. The 401k can be delivered at a lower cost, but the PEO now has to do a little more work. Darrin has done a great job on covering this issue and I have called and discussed the PEO industry with him over the last few years. There is no easy way for you to transition your clients to a new 401k plan. Your current plan must stop....sooner the better. You must get with a provider that has experience in this area...Transamerica comes to mind...that can give the PEO a program in the Multiple Employer arrangement as required by the IRS. The PEO industry is lucky the IRS did not rule that those single plans were disqualified.

Sorry for the long dialogue. The point is you need to seek expert advice. There is no easy way to do what needs to be done.

Hello,

We are in the process of amending one of our DB plans to a floor offset plan to satisfy the “meaningful benefits” memorandum that Paul Shultz of the IRS came out with last year.

Prior to the amendment, the DB plan (#002) had very small but nonzero benefits solely to pass 401(a)(26). The 401(k) plan then had the 7.5% minimum gateway contributions needed to pass 401(a)(4). Obviously, we are general-testing both plans and don’t care about meeting any safe-harbor plan designs.

For 2003, we will have the plan sponsor adopt a new PS plan (#003) with a 7.5% anticipated contribution for all non-HCE’s. This will be identified as the DC offset plan.

Question #1: Can the 401(k) plan (#001) continue to permit the two HCE’s to get PS allocations in this plan, not plan #003, and therefore not have their plan #002 benefits offset by any projected account balance? The plan sponsor will probably have enough room to not violate the overall 25% deduction limit, even though the two HCE’s have 100% benefit formulas in plan #002. We would aggregate the 12/31/02 balances of plan #001 with the 1/1/03 DB accrued benefits for 401(a)(4) testing, then next year aggregate both the 401(k) plan #001 and the PS plan #003 balances at 12/31/03 with the 1/1/04 DB accrued benefits and test all 3 plans for 401(a)(4).

Question #2: For plan year 2003, I’d like to do a beginning of year 1/1/03 DB valuation. Can I project a DC plan #003 account balance at retirement for all the non-HCE participants, even though the first contribution won’t be made effective until 12/31/03? I realize that if a participant terminates without an actual vested DC account balance that there would be no offset, but I’m talking about projected benefits for funding purposes, not accrued benefits.

P.S. I'd like to ask Norm Levinrad for his opinion, but I can't find his email address on BenefitsLink. So, does anyone else care to answer?

Regarding a governmental DB plan, I have a question about the 415(B)(1)(A) annual benefit limit of $160,000.

I'm not an actuary, so I'm only trying to get a basic understanding of what this limit means to an employee who has been in a DB plan for many years and has a relatively high income. For example, a public university faculty physician where the university does not have a separate faculty practice plan, i.e., both teaching and clinical practice income are paid by the university on one check.

For example, assume one has worked for the university for 30 years, and the state teachers' retirement system general retirement benefit formula is 2% for each year of service. Assume a $300,000 average annual salary over the last 3 years (assume pre-'96 employment so not subject to the $200,000 annual compensation limit). The general benefit formula would result in a $180,000 annual retirement benefit. This is clearly in excess of the current limit of $160,000, so would the plan have language limiting the benefit to $160,000?

And what of the requirement that each employee contribute 5% of his/her salary to the plan? Would the employee still be required to contribute 5%, even though the retirement benefit being "purchased" by this contribution, as a percentage of average salary, is less than one whose retirement benefit is under the 415(B)(1)(A) limit?

Thanks,

Ken Davis

For a 15 person company the employer pays 100% of the employee-only health insurance cost of the group health plan but there are five employees who receive health insurance through a spouse's plan so for these five the employer pays nothing because they have waived coverage. This obviously saves the employer money and somewhat short-changes the five employees who have opted out.

Is it legal and/or appropriate for the employer to pay these five employees the amount of the health insurance premiums as additional salary? Or would that create problems and other issues? Perhaps these employees could deposit the extra salary into a cafeteria plan to use for some other purpose. Any ideas?