I am named as a Beneficiary on my father's IRA. He passed away in 1995 and I have only recently been informed that I was supposed to elect a distribution method within two years of his death, and begun taking disbursements. Is there any way I can avoid taking a large disbursement and paying late penalities?

The employer is a govt. contractor and over the last several years the contracts have dwindled. This has meant that in each of the last few years employees (plan participants) have been terminated. Some years the numbers that have terminated have been sufficient to warrant partial termination. In this last year, however, the number was just below the 20% guideline for partial termination. Would it be correct to say that since the ER has history of "partial terminations" that even though the 2001 standing by itself doesn't look like a partial termination, it actually is? I want to play it safe and tell the ER this is a partial term. and vest the affected participants. The ER, however, doesn't want to do this if it isn't absolutely necessary.

Does anyone have experience with either North American Administrators or Great West with administrating the TPA portion of a self-funded plan?

Does anyone know where I can find ratings on TPA's??

THANK YOU!!

A participant with an account balance less than $5 has not completed a beneficiary designation and dies.

The terms of the plan provide that the benefit would be payable to the participant's estate. However, I have been told that the participant did not have any assets and they did not intend to obtain a separate estate tax ID number.

The TPA is indicating that they cannot pay the benefit without the estate's TIN.

Any suggestions on how to handle this distribution?

Has anyone ever dealt with either of these issues?

A hospital has an ambulatory surgery center where surgery is performed on an outpatient basis by area doctors. The Hospital and area doctors formed an LLC that administers the surgery center using employees that are leased from the Hospital. The LLC has no retirement plan. All leased employees working at the center are paid by the Hospital and are fully covered by Hospital benefits including coverage in the Hospital's defined benefit plan.

The doctors each own individually a small percentage of the LLC (about 5% each), and each derive revenue from performing surgery at the center. In some cases the revenue that each doctor derives is a substantial percentage of their total revenue from practicing medicine (percentages range from about 3% to about 40%). The doctors themselves each own small some or all of a small business that practices medicine and most of them sponsor qualified retirement plans. Their plans would be disqualified if an affiliated service group were found to exist with the Hospital because they could not afford to cover 70% of the Hospital's 1000+ employees.

1. The Hospital keeps telling me that these arrangements are "all over the country" and that I am the first person to assert that an affiliated service group might exist. So I'm asking, have others of you dealt with this scenario? If so, what arguments did you make that no ASG existed?

2. A related question. Has anyone ever gotten a determination letter dealing only with the ASG issue? The IRS reviewer tells me that they will not rule on whether or not an ASG exists, but only whether the Plan would be qualified if it does. I can understand his reading of Notice 2002-6, but it seems to me that it renders the ASG determination process meaningless. Has anyone else dealt with this? What was the outcome?

Company A bought Company B. Both had their own H & W plans. At the end of 2001, Company B terminated their plans and began participating in Company A's plans as of 1/1/02. I am in the process of doing Form 5500's for both the Company A and Company B plans. What SAR's should the employees of Company B receive? SAR's for the terminated Company B plans, the remaining Company A plans, or both?

Who should actually receive a H&W SAR? Anyone who benefited during the year, only those who were benefiting at the end of the year, or those who are benefiting when the SAR is mailed?

Thanks

PAL

An employer offers a group health plan that is non-contributory. Is it necessary that all otherwise eligible employees be covered or may they waive coverage? Is there a difference if it is an insured plan and the employer is paying the total costs of the premiums for those employees who want coverage?

My mother died this year. The sole beneficiaries of her estate are her 4 children. My mother had several IRA's. Estate taxes will be due on her estate, and therefore I understand that an IRD deduction will be available to her children, because they are inheriting the IRAs.

I have two questions:

1. Do the IRA's have to remain in a single account in my mother's name indefinitely, or are the 4 children able to divide the IRA up into 4 separate pieces so that each of us can invest the IRA money as we see fit?

2. One lawyer has told us that we are able to divide the IRA into 4 pieces, but that we will lose the IRD deduction if we do so. According to him, if we wish to take the IRD deduction, we need to keep the IRA intact in our mother's name. Is this lawyer correct?

I'm working on a proposal for a DB plan for a beginning of year valuation for the plan year 1/1/2002 - 12/31/2002.

There is one employee (DOB = 4/20/53) who is making $500,000 per year. Assume immediate entry (1/1/2002). Assume salary remains level at $500,000. Normal Retirement age is 65.

I want to set up a 10% of pay times years of participation (max 10 years) plan.

Am I correct in the following?

Accrued Benefit = $0 (because he has 0 participation at 1/1/02)

Current Liability Monthly Accrued Benefit =

Minimum of (1) 170000 / 12 x .10 x 1 = $1,416.67

(2) 160000 / 12 x 1 / 10 = $1,333.33 (415b $ Limit)

Projected Monthly Benefit =

Minimum of (1) 170000 / 12 x .10 x 10 = $14,166.67

(2) 160000 / 12 x 10 / 10 = $13,333.33

My firm is considering upgrading our administration capability from Balance Forward to Daily Valuation. We had been outsourcing our Daily Val admin to another party. We would look to bring those plans back in-house and convert existing plans to Daily. Does anyone use the OmniPlus ASP version. Which system is better for Daily val, Relius or SchwabRT(Trustmark)?

Thanks

Where can I find a copy of a"model certificate of creditable coverage"?

Thanks in advance!

Employer with 30 employees has a Profit Sharing and Pension plan with 10/31 plan year end. ER does a 25% contribution between the two plans (these are traditional plans). Same ER purchased a new company and owns it 100%. That company has a 401(K) plan (daily) with a 12/31 plan year end and about 250 participants. K plan just has deferrals and match. ER wants to continue to operate the two companies and plans separately and does not want to change the contribution levels (if possible).

The purchase happened last November, so the one year transition provides relief for the coverage, but not the 401(a)(4), correct?

But, I thought you can't test plans together for 401(a)(4) if the year ends are different?

I would appreciate any help on this!

I was curious how some out there would handle this situation. Plan is 8 years old and terminating and assets are less than plan liabilities. Ownership of the corporation is:

Owner A - 45%

Owner B - 45%

Owner C - 10%

The owners desire to waive benefits in proportion to their present value of accrued benefits after the other participants are paid in full. The plan is not covered by the PBGC.

The document specifies that in such a situation, each person's share of the assets in based on the PBGC guaranteed benefit calculation. Therefore, without even doing the calculation, I know that only owner A and owner B will get reduced benefits because owner c is not a substantial owner and will not be subject to the 30-year phase-in.

Does anyone think a plan amendment changing the document language would be allowed if the result reduced owner c's distribution? Any other way to have what the client wants achieved? In other words how far can HCE's go to waive benefits?

Right now I have a small amount in a Roth IRA Money Market account. If I decide later that I want to change this to a different type of investment, and/or change financial institutions, will I be charged a fee to do this? Is this a simple rollover?

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Hello.

This is my first time on this board so please be kind. I am new to the employee benefits field of marketing so I am hoping to correspond to anyone that can share "honest" and helpful advice and techniques to market service plans to HR Directors and small businesses. From the message boards that I've read so far, No one has expressed the pros/cons of what is heralded by many business journals as a needed benefit to enhance a business's portfolio-legal expense plans. all replys will be returned.

Let's say you have a plan that you discover needs to have their ADP/ACP testing redone for the 2000 plan year. The original test failed and refunds were made. You now have two choices:

1. Redo the test using all eligible employees, which gives you failing results so you are now faced with making additional refunds plus QNEC to correct, OR

2. Redo the test carving out your otherwise excludable group, pass the test by a comfortable margin and now deal with having made too much in the way of refunds (how would you deal with that anyway?).

Where would you rather be and why?

Thanks.

Does anyone have any administrative language on how to reduce a disability pension for a firefighter who is also receiving Workers Compensation disability payments. I need to know if there is a standard method of calculating the reduction since firefighters have different amounts of pay from week to week.

We are self-insured for employee medical coverage. We contract with a TPA to process claims and with a reinsurer for specific and aggregate stop-loss coverage. We are looking to switch TPAs. However, our contact years for the TPA and reinsurer are different. I've been advised that switching TPAs in the middle of the reinsurance contract cycle is a nightmare. Has anyone faced this situation? If so, can you offer any experiences or advice to someone who's considering it?

I am working on the ADP test for a multiple employer plan that has included the 401(k) feature since 1999. In the 2001 plan year, an additional company signed on to be a part of the multiple employer plan. Would it be possible to use the deemed 3% NHCE percentage level since this is the first year the company is offering a 401(k) plan? OR Is it not possible since the plan itself has offered the 401(k) feature in past to other companies within the multiple employer plan?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Brian