I have been unable to locate any specific revenue rulings which state whether key-employee insurance is subject to the limitations of the "Incidental Rule" required for life insurance coverage in defined contribution plans. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

Hello, new to the board as far as posting, not new to the industry. My understanding of allocating forfeitures are they are included in total allocation for the 415 test but they are not shown on the ADP/ACP test as an employer contribution because it is not new money to the plan.

This plan I'm working on says the forfeitures are "added to the employer matching contribution". Specific reg I can refer to would be great!

If a plan terminates, and all assets are distributed, when is the 5500 deadline? 7months from distribution/termination, or 7 months from end of what would have been the plan year?

Thank you for any replies.

Crystal

I administer a plan that clearly had a partial termination in 2001. Therefore, I changed the vesting of all employees who were terminated in 2001 to 100%. Two of the employees have already been rehired in 2002. The question is should the rehires vesting remain at 100% or should their vesting go back to what it would have been had there not been a partial termination?

Can someone please give me a simplistic explanation of what Qualifying Employer Real Property and Qualifying Employer Securities are.

THANKS in advance.

I put in $2000 early this year for my 2001 Roth IRA contribution as I did the year before. But after roughly doing the tax return calculation, I found out the the joint growth income for both me and my husband is over 150K but still below 16K last year, which means I put too much in. What can I do at this point to correct the situation. This is aparently an honest mistake since we just bearly made it there and had no way of knowing it exactly without doing the tax return calculation.

After working for the company for a number of years, an employee quit and was rehired after a year and a half. According to the plan, an employee is eligible for a match after 6 months and then is 100% vested in the match, but the plan is silent on addressing a match after a break in service.

Is there a general rule: does the employee have to rewait the 6 months for a match? Or, is it up to the employer/the plan is controlling (which means the plan must be amended to address this issue)?

We have an associate that had the impression for a dental crown done in December 2000 but the crown wasn't seated until January 2001. She is wanting to claim the expense for 2001 health care reimbursement.

The dental insurance paid the claim in December 2000. Should she be allowed to claim this expense because the service was not completed until 2001?

Happy monday all.

Anyone up to speed on the interaction of the three above mentioned pieces of legilation relating to privacy and information sharing issues within a financial institution.

Seems to me that GLB and USAPATRIOT are somewhat at odds.

Many Thanks.

We are a large employer (not in the healthcare industry) in 50 states that self-insures it medical plan and also has about a dozen HMO's in some states. We outsource the administration to UHC for the self-insured part of our medical plan.

The problem I am having is trying to determine what is considered PHI (protected health information) internally that falls outside of TPO (treatment, payment or healthcare operations)

Would anyone have a good list?

Also in our HR dept. we separate our health benefits administration group from the group that handles FMLA and other employment based issues. Our workers comp(although headquartered in a separate state reports into headquarters) & LTD functions are part of benefits health admin in corporate

We have employees(HR reps) in the field who may come into play with PHI on a day-to-day basis

It seems to me at first glance that this may be monumental companywide

I read that workers' comp is exempt from the privacy rules? What about disability plan administration and FMLA? I also understand that "firewalls " must be in place between anyone who handles PHI for the health plan and other benefits/employment administration. Does anyone have any good recommendations here?

Our FMLA group from time to time may have interaction with our helath benefits admin group and the same for our disability administrators (they actually report into Benefits Admin as well)

We get involve dquite a bit in helping ees try to resolve claims/payment issues -does this fall under the "payment" exclusion?

Thanks for any and all insights

What is the maximum dollar amount that our 17 year old can contribute to a Roth IRA? He only works part time in the summers ( gets $1000 each Christmas from Grandparents also for investing). Is it dollar for dollar in regards to his earned income with a max of $2000? Would the same hold true for his 18 year old brother with same history? I am new at investing so I hope that this makes sense.

I do not see many articles on the use of Roth IRAs as a savings vehicle for kid's college education. With Education IRAs and 529 plans, you are locked into using this money for one purpose only. What if your kid decides not to go to college or receives a full scholarship? What happens to that money? What do you do with it and how does the IRS penalize you?

In addition, the returns in the NYS 529 plan are dismal. I know you get tax break on state returns, but I question how good these 529 plans really are. Now you are not taxed on earnings, but that does not matter if the plan is losing value.

With a Roth IRA, you have more flexibility in that if all the money is not needed for college education, then this becomes additional retirement savings. I know you are taxed on earnings only when a withdrawal is made for higher education. This is a disadvantage.

I don't believe my kids would receive any financial aid.

I would welcome comments/suggestions.

Describe the essential differences between strategic plans and operational plans for employee benefits. Provide examples of typical items included in each type of plan. Are there any planning aids that can be used to help in this process?

Describe the essential differences between strategic plans and operational plans for employee benefits. Provide examples of typical items included in each type of plan. Are there any planning aids that can be used to help in this process?

For a qualified distribution, do participants still pay taxes based on ten year averaging?

401(k) Plan... 2001 passes ADP with NHCEs, but by 12/31/01 they are all terminated (small tech co.).

2002 only the HCEs (2). As I understand it, 401(k) with no HCEs is deemed to pass ADP. But is there an implicit current year election in this case. Or is there just no test, current or prior.

Employer has union plan for union employees. For several years union has allowed non-union employees to participate as non-voting members receiving all benefits (pension, annuity, health insurance, etc.) Union has now decided that this arrangement is not proper and will not allow new employees to join their plan. Employer is now concerned as to propriety of non-union in union plan. Also what to do about new non-union employees, who would have joined the union plan,and how to provide benefits for them. The union has agreed to allow present non-union participants to remain in the union plan.

I have a governmental client who has a 457 plan for employee deferrals. One of the 457 providers requires that upon the death of a participant the account balance must be paid to the City instead of a named beneficiary. The service provider is quoting IRC 457(g) as the authority for this. When I review 457(g) it indicates the requirement of a trust, custodial account, or annuity for the exclusive benefit of plan participants. Paying the account balance to the City seems to violate this requirement. Is the service provider correct? If not, is there any additional guidance you can direct me to?

Thanks for your help and I look forward to receiving the Govt Answer book that I have on order!

Employer is considering setting up a 401k. Plan will be employee only contributions. They want to take a survey of employees to determine potential participation level. Does anyone have a sample form that can be used for this survey? Employer is not willing to consider automatic eenrollment option. Still insists on doing survey of employees. Need help with form, if possible.

We administer a governmental defined benefit plan that does not contain any QDRO language. We received a final judgement of dissolution that awards a wife of a plan participant that has not reached early or normal retirement age, but is vested in the plan. The judgement simply states the wife is given "one-half of the husband's retirement from the date of acquiring said retirement until the date of filing the Petition." When does the wife begin collecting the benefit? Do we require a QDRO & who prepares it? How do we calculate the 50%?