If a participant that has been taking the required minimum distributions dies, can his beneficiary who is his spouse and not age 70 1/2 defer taking the required minimum distributions until she reaches age 70 1/2?

Thank you!

Assume employer does not file a 5558 - what is the fine for filing 5500 late? Is it a 'set' fine or is it on a daily basis? I'm sure the info in on the web somewhere, but what is the address? Thanks in advance!

If a New Comparability plan is put together on a Volume Submitter document, does the Plan have to go through the standard IRS submission/determination letter process any more?

Is it dependent on the complexity of the plan? (number of groups, etc.)

Tax-exempt employer sponsors 403(B) plan, and decides to change recordkeepers. New recordkeeper is mutual fund company, and employer would like to give participants the option to transfer their investments from annuity contracts to mutual funds.

Can a participant change his or her underlying investment from annuity contract to mutual funds? Is this accomplished through a so-called 90-24 asset transfer? What documentation would be necessary to accomplish the exchange? I know that participants should proceed with caution before making an exchange since most annuity investments contain stiff penalties for early withdrawals. Any other issues?

Can anyone please clarify the definition of Active Participant on the 5500 form for a 401k PSP. Someone has suggested to me that even an employee who is not yet eligible to enter the plan because he has not yet completed the Year of Service requirement is still considered an Active Participant. That seems to make no sense to me, although the instructions due elude to employees earning credited service. Please help I have a plan that is hovering just under 100, but if I have to add additional participants, I have a problem........

Can an employee on a Non-FMLA leave of absence be prohibited from making election changes during the normal annual enrollment period while on leave of absence?

Please Note: I am not interested in how this question relates to FMLA or COBRA requirements.

Would HIPAA apply? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

A 401(k) plan permits all participants to segregate and direct their account balances. This option is currently available at a reasonable cost, and all participants do direct whereever and however they want to. A HCE wants to hire a professional money manager to invest his account balance. The minimum investment is $100,000. The plan sponsor has been told that to allow this would violate the current availability provisions of Treas. Reg. sec. 1.401(a)(4)-4(B)(1).

I disagree since the right to direct is available to all participants and there is no required minimum balance for self direction, but cannot find a supporting citation. Can anyone help?

We don't do ESOPs, so I know very little about them. But we've been asked by a client - "If I have a 401(k) to which I have made profit sharing contributions, (which are participant directed, by the way) and I want to establish an ESOP, and "transfer" the profit sharing contribution accounts to the ESOP, can I do this?"

I would assume not. But I don't know. I think you could establish the ESOP and make all future profit sharing contributions to that ESOP, but I don't see how you could force the participants to transfer their existing account balances to it without "converting" the 401(k) to an ESOP. And even if you can, it seems that there could be a gross breach of fiduciary prudence if the employer stock ever drops.

Any opinions would be appreciated!

Has anyone seen any articles, surveys, etc. on the issue of using interim valuations to make distributions? With the rapidly changing (mostly declining) markets, those remaining plans using annual, semi-annual and even quarterly valuation dates could be facing some difficult issues when it comes to making distributions based on stale valuations. I've seen cases on both sides of the issue, but have not yet been able to distinguish a trend.

Thanks.

A plan terminates mid-year and all assets are distributed before December 31. The plan has been valued at end of year. What assets and benefits are used to calculate the minimum funding requirement? They are both $0 as of December 31. It does not appear that a change to Beginning of Year Valuation is available under the Rev Proc as the plan is slightly underfunded with repect to the PVAB's at that time.

Any help is appreciated.

Would appreciate any input as to how to obtain one.

Does anyone know the approximate percentage of group health plans (fully insured and/or self insured)that use TPAs, as opposed to in-house administrators (including the employer)?

I am merely trying to ascertain whether "most" group plans subject to COBRA use TPAs.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

We have an employee who has had a court order issued to him to add on a dependant who was not previosly covered on his medical insurance plan. We have added on his dependant per this court order and now the employee would like to start contributing to a section 125 Medical Flexible Spending Account also. This would be a mid-year enrollment as he did not sign up/enroll at the beggining of the plan year. There was no Qualified Family status change (i.e birth, los of other coverage, divorce), the enrollment was strictly by court order.

My question is: Do we have to allow him to enroll in our secton 125 Medical Flexible spending account to pay for things like deductables and co-pays even though it is mid-year? and there was no "qualifying life event"?

Does a Church Plan need to file a 5500?

Does anyone know of a resource that lists the pre-tax eligibility(125 plan) of Worker's Comp. premiums by state?

Thanks,

Paul

Just wanted to make sure I am reporting this correctly . . .

Schedule I:

Excess deferrals are recorded as part of the "Contributions received or receivable" for the year in which they were deposited.

When the refunds are made in, say, 2002, we show the "corrective distributions" coming out then?

Vs. netting everything in 2001.

Plan was first required to file accountant's report with Form 5500 for 2000 plan (calendar) year. For reasons yet to be determined, the plan did not include the report with the 5500. Appropriate correction appears to be filing an amended 5500 with the report (and any other corresponding changes).

Section 2.01 of DFVC Program says that relief is not available for "annual reports that are determined by the Department to be incomplete or otherwise deficient." So it looks like we don't file an amended 5500 under that Program.

DOL Reg. 2560.502c-2(B)(3) indicates that no penalty will be assessed under ERISA 502©, provided that a revised report is filed within 45 days after the DOL rejects the initial filing. However, I haven't found any DOL position on the assessment of penalties when an incomplete filing is voluntarily corrected before the DOL rejects the initial filing.

Does anyone have any experience with the DOL position on the assessment of the civil penalty when you simply file an amended 5500 before receiving a formal notice of rejection from DOL?

We have had several employees recently who have received lump-sum distributions due to their account being under $5,000. Our recordkeeper sends terminated employees a letter when they leave the company telling them what their options are and if they do NOT respond within 90 days, their account will be distributed to them if the value is under 5k.

These employees are now stating that they never received the letter and they would like the check reissued as a rollover. Our recordkeeper has confirmed if every case a letter was sent out and since the employee did not respond, their account was distributed. As the plan administrator, what are our options? Does it cause any plan qualification issues if we reissue the check? Our recordkeeper is stating that this is an irrevocable election and it could cause qualification issues.

The proposed regulations under 414(v) indicate that catch-up contributions are disregarded for a number of tests, however, 401(a)(4) is not on that list.

My question is: can the catch-up contributions be disregarded when doing the general test?

Does an ERISA plan/LTD carrier have a right to receive reimbursement for long term disability benefits out of proceeds from an auto accident settlement?

John A. Wolkowski, Esquire