Who is ultimately responsible when an employee uses the MSA credit card at an eating establishment for payment and the payment is accepted?

I am trying to locate copies of the PLR's regarding Sec. 105, with regard to HCE's and the discrimination testing. Specifically, I am looking for copies of PLR's 8336065, 8411050, 8411051, and 8432036.

If anyone has copies of these I would greatly appreciate if you could fax them to me. If not, can someone please advise me exactly where I need to send a request to receive copies directly from the IRS.

THANKS!!!

In a one participant plan 35,500 was contributed during the plan year that ends 12/31/01. $500 to set up the plan account, and then an additional 35,000 later during the year. Does exceeding 415 cause the 415 excess to be non-deductible for the employer's 12/31/01 taxable year?

I've read that catch-up contributions are available in the first plan year beginning after 12/31/01. Is this correct, and is it correct that a 1/31/02 plan year end ADP test cannot use the catch-up rules?

Given the recent instructions regarding the reporting of catch-up contributions on W-2s, do catch-up contribution amounts need to be determined before W-2s are issued? (Whereas currently, ADP test results have no impact on what is reported on a W-2).

Thanks.

Does anyone have a sample letter that they have been sending to their clients advising them of the document restatement issues? We are interested in sending some sort of comfort letter to our clients.

Thanks

I am amending a DC plan to actually liberalize benefits (decreasing eligibility requirements). Can someone discuss my notice requirements for this and minor amendments?

How are the following overcontributions in a SIMPLE IRA corrected

1. employee contributions for current tax year;

2. employer contributions for current tax year;

3. employee contributions for prior tax year; and

4. employer contributions for prior tax year?

Cites would be greatly appreciated.

beneficiary inherits a regular IRA. Deceased

owner was older than 70 1/2 and already taking,

(yearly recalulated) minimum distribution amounts.

assuming the beneficiary, is younger than 70 1/2,

what are the beneficiarys' options as far as

continung to take distibutions ?

may the beneficary, younger than 70 1/2, have

the inherited ira placed in his/her name,

and take distibutions based only on his/her

life expectency ?

Under what circumstances is the beneficary

required to take all of the ira distributions,

in a "short time period" ? 1 year ?

5 years ? etc. as opposed to lifetime of beneficary ?

In a recent conversation with a colleague, the eligibility of over-the-counter sunglasses came up. She said the IRS had recently ruled that, due to their protective nature, regular sunglasses were eligible for reimbursement. Review of Pub. 502 (2001) did not concur, and a web search has been fruitless. She now claims never to have spoken to me, as well! ;-)

This sounds reasonable, has anyone else heard of this ruling, or is it wishful thinking?

Paul Meahl

I am looking for some historical information on the unrounded wage base. Anyone have a source of this data?

It appears that the $35,000 415 limit is effective for Limitation Years ENDING in 2001. But the $40,000 415 limit is not effective for Limitation Years ending in 2002, but for years BEGINNING in 2002...I am looking at IRS News Release IR-2001-115 3rd paragraph. Is my interpretation correct? This seems inconsistent and is confusing to me.

As a CPA and auditor, one of my tasks is to consider whether significant actuarial assumptions used to calculate employers' accounting for defined benefit plans are "reasonable." Is there any published information on actuarial assumed rates of return on plan assets and discount rates that are considered "reasonable" in light of current market and economic conditions, or ranges of rates expected to be used in 12/31/01 actuarial assumptions?

One of my clients is a one man corporation with a Profit Sharing Plan and a Money Purchase Pension Plan. Contributions are made during prior year that go over the 404 limit and so are non-deductible and can't be allocated to the participant because of 415 limits. A 10% excise tax is paid. During the current year, the plans are terminated because corporation is defunct. Participant has comp that uses up the non-deductible contributions in the pension plan for the current year but not enough to allow allocation and deduction of all of the carry forward non-deductible contributions in the profit sharing plan. What is the correct way to handle? Must all remaining non-deductible contributions revert to the corporation and a 50% excise tax is due? Is another 10% excise tax due? Could plan fees be paid from the reversion amount to reduce it and thereby reduce the 50% excise tax? (Similar to db plan reversions?)

Can an inactive participant (an employee who is out of work due to temporary disability and who will be returning to work next month) take a hardship distribution, or does their "inactive" status preclude such a distribution?

Must a spouse's consent to a distribution from a 401(k) Plan be notarized? The Plan document is silent on this, our distribution form says it is required, but an ex-employee is really bucking this. He has over $5000 in the Plan, and in those cases we require spouse's notarized consent. We want to be able to give him a reg or ruling that says this is required, or, if it's not required, we might consider taking it off the form.

Thanks!

Here is my question:

I have a situation where a 501©(3) company with a 403(B) plan moved all of its employees to a for-profit entity with a 401(k) plan purusant to a corporate deal. At that time, all but one participant in the 403(B) plan elected to withdraw/rollover their funds so the company now has one person in a frozen 403(B) plan that the company continues administer.

My question is, at this point, is there anything that this company can do to "force" the sole remaining participant out of the plan (without violating any laws) other than to simply attempt to "entice" this person with the new rollover options?

What effect, if any, does the fact that this person is under 59 1/2, and experienced a "severance from service" a few years ago when this restructuring took place but has not otherwise had a "triggering event" at this time, have on the participant's ability to rollover such funds, tax-free, under the new law (to the 401(k) plan, for example)?

I haven't researched this yet, but I thought someone out there may have already looked in to this. I have a multiple employer 401(k) plan, since each employer is tested separately for 401(k) and 401(m), can each employer elect separately to be covered by the "safe harbor" rules or does the whole plan need to be covered?

We are a TPA of cafeteria plans and are looking to purchase new administration software. I was hoping to get some responses on what software some of you are using and how you like it. We are mainly looking at Bemas, DataPath125, Datair FlexPlus/Cafeteria Admin and Fast-Flex Plus. Please let me know any good or bad. Any help is greatly appreciated!!

5500 forms - Part 1 Item C

Regarding the box "collective bargaining" - we work with school systems - and while SOME employees belong to unions and make the 125 plans part of their contract - this is not true for all. Should the collective bargaining question be answered yes or no?

The plans for the schools are usually all inclusive and not specific to particular to a specific group, i.e. teachers, bus drivers etc.

(There is no language in the Plan Docs regarding this)

THANKS!

Can anyone provide some guidence on a QDRO that is ordered to be valued through first quarter of a prior year when the plan is valued annually?