I have a 401k plan with a former employer and I would like them to provide me the name and number of the company that administers the fund so I can contact them regarding a rollover. My former employer has yet to provide me this information (With other past employers I have gotten a notice in the mail within 30 days). I have requested the information verbally and by email and they have not provided it. Is there any law that they have to provide me this information... If so in what time period.

Also of concern to me is that this employer is not depositing funds on a regular basis. I know this because when I quit they offered to re-imburse me for the previous 3 months withholding because they had not yet deposited them (an act of kindness I guess).

Thanks in advance,

Russ Dietz

If I receive income from a pension plan, am I able to make an IRA contribution & is it deductible?

My spouse currently is employed and is covered by a plan at work. Is she able to make a deductible contribution?

Thanks for your help!

JimJ

Company A sponsors a 401(k) plan. In 2001, Company A acquires all of the stock of Company B, which also has a 401(k) plan, and merges Company B's plan into Company A's plan. Employee X is an employee of Company B. During 2000 and 2001, Employee X received $100,000 of compensation.

Assuming Employee X is not a 5-percent owner, would Employee X be considered a highly compensated employee for 2001, or since his 2000 compensation was earned before he became an employee of Company A's controlled group, is he considered to have zero compensation during 2000, making him a non-highly compensated employee for 2001?

Would it make any difference if Company B did not have a 401(k) plan?

Terminated participant elects family coverage under COBRA

Later determines premiums are too expensive and wants to drop himself and a son from coverage, outside of open enrollment and not related to any change in status event.

Is this permissible?

From what I can gather, a COBRA election change (including dropping coverage) is limited to open enrollment and/or a change in status, ala Section 125 plans.

We are new to Relius and was wondering if anyone out there uses Microsoft Word to produce reports such as participant statements. We do not currently have Crystal and do not have any capability of customizing the Participant Statements to our liking. If someone does export the data to a word format, I would greatly appreciate some input.

Can an Employer fully, or partially, fund a Medical FSA? I am working with an employer who wants to provide a $1500 FSA for the employees who do not participate in the group medical insurance plan. This will not be a salary reduction arrangement since it is employer paid.

What if the employer wants to also allow employees to contribute through salary reduction? Could this money be put into the same account. employer/employee?

I'm looking for a second opinion, so please chime in:

ESOP dividends paid to participants and reported on Form 1099-DIV should obviously be included in Schedule E. Should such dividends be reported on Schedule H, part 2, line e(1): benefit payments to participants or beneficiaries?

Additional information requested by "Disco Stu" below:

These dividends are not allocated to the participant accounts but rather are paid to the participants directly as taxable income reported on Form 1099-DIV. The Plan pays stock dividends to active employees and allows the employees to make an offsetting pre-tax contribution equal to the amount of the dividend. Are such dividend payments considered "benefit payments" for Form 5500 reporting purposes?

We mailed a 402(f) notice to a participant with less than a $5,000 balance. A month after that, we sent a check to the address of record. Turns out she had moved. She found the check at her parent's house. Unfortunately, she was advised to return the check to us with rollover instructions. She did this on the 60th day after the check was cut. She was told by a CPA during the 60 days to roll the check to an IRA and make up the 20% withholding with her own money, but, she chose to return the check instead.

Now she wants us to roll the 80% to an IRA. What can we do?

For purposes of running a comp test, Reg. 1.414(s)-1(d)(3)(vi) limits an individual employee's compensation percentage to 1.00 for alternative definitions of comp that use rate of compensation or include prior-employer or imputed compensation (that is, the numerator can't be more than the denominator). The instructions to Demo 9 of Sch. Q hint that this limitation is also true for all alternative definitions of comp, but the regs only state the limitation for alternative definitions that use rate of comp or include prior-employer or imputed comp. Does anyone have experience with this issue? For a 414(s) comp test, can the numerator be greater than the denominator in calculating an individual comp percentage?

Has anyone encountered this question. The final regulations state that the commencement of an unpaid LOA is a change of status. This may be pushing the envelope, but what about an employee's spouse who goes to a partially paid medical LOA where the pay will be equal to 20% of the pre-LOA earnings. Equity dictates that this should be change in status, but the regulations rule. Any thoughts??

I have a client who is in the process of doing a QDRO for one of her employees and the alternate payee is requesting that an account be set up for her and maintained by the plan (she apparently likes the fund selection & performance). The trustee does not want to do this - she wants the alternate payee to take a distribuiton now. Is the company required to set up an account for a non-employee?

Thanks!

Are health insurance premium increases a qualifying event in order to change from your plan to your spouse's? I have a situation where the wife did not take her insurance at open enrollment (March) due to higher costs. However, her spouse's plan will not let her enroll until open enrollment (July).

If this is the case, she would technically need a qualifying event to disenroll from her plan in order to come on her husband's since Section 125 POP plans require a "qualifying" event to change at any other time other than open enrollment.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Can I contribute to multiple Roth IRAs or is my 2001 tax year contribution limited to one Roth IRA? Please advise.

AJ

A stock bonus plan wants to sell some of the employer stock that it holds to the plan sponsor in exchange for cash and a note. Assume that the cash and note are FMV for the stock. Is the note a separate prohibited transaction? Or, is it fine that part of the value provided in a 408(e) transaction is a note?

A client just informed me that the tax id number that is listed on their Form 5500 is the number for one of the companies that is part of their controlled group, but it is not the tax id number for the company whose name is on the plan. That is, this company is made up of a few companies, but all are a controlled group and all covered by the same 401(k) plan. The name of the plan is ABC 401(k) Plan. The tax id number used on the 5500 belongs to DEF company - one of the companies in this controlled group.

Does this matter?

Thanks for your help.

Is the employer and/or plan administrator required to monitor employment status and level of income of the non-custodial parent when a National Medical Support Notice was determined to be "qualified" but the employee's income was found to be insufficient due to state/federal withholding limitations which prevent the withholding from the employee's income of the amount required to obtain coverage under the terms of the plan? If so, then what is the length of time and frequency required to track the employee's status and income?

What are the requirements for including privacy provisions in a plan document or summary plan description for a self-funded welfare plan? Is there a model notice that can be incorporated into the document?

Do any accounting types out there know what, if any, financial statement disclosure is required for potential withdrawal liability? For example, ABC company contributes to a multiemployer plan and anticipates that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Must ABC show on its balance sheet, footnotes, etc. the withdrawal liability that it would incur if it were to withdraw?

This non-accounting type appreciates any and all responses.

Thanks.

We currently provide a variety of implementation and administration services for our clinets (i.e., section 125, COBRA, Benefit Statements, etc).

We have been asked by an existimg client to provide implementation and administration of a "Davis Bacon" like plan. The employees are non-union, but work on projects that require the employer to pay a prevailing wage. The employer currently pays this out in cash (taxable) and has been convinced that they will save big bucks if the money is used on fringe benefits (specifically medical coverage and pension plan) because of the employer's tax savings. I have lots of questions, but my first and most important is:

1. Does this employer have to implement a Davis Bacon/Prevailing Wage plan if they want to contribute this money to fringe benefits or can it be handled through a Flex Plan in which the employer provides employees with credits to pay for these benefits?

Thanks for your help!

With Respect to SARSEPs, in a plan that makes 5% of salary automatic contributions each year, what is the maximum deferral percentage for an employee under the JCWWA law? Specifically, can an employee who is earning, say $44,000, defer 25% of their pay up to $11,000?