Hi

I want to check others' experience on time frame and expectations for getting a PBGC coverage determination.

Applied for determination on PBGC coverage beginning of March 2022 for a financial company.

Was contacted for additional information multiple times during March and provided everything they asked for. Last communique was on 3/31/2022.

Haven't heard from PBGC by mid-April so started following up multiple times and the responses I have been getting are:

"We are working on the request for an opinion letter for the proposed plan.   I do not have an estimated date that a letter will be issued."

"We still don’t have an estimated date for issuance of an opinion letter.  We’ll let you know when we do." This one was last week.

Anyone had a recent experience?

Client is anxious as this is for 2021.

Thanks

We have been asked if we can process a QDRO provided to us after the death of the AP.  Our QDRO procedure does not address this scenario.  Can we?

Have two attorneys that each own 100% of their own s-corps.  Those two attorneys each own 50% of an accounting firm of which they do not perform any legal work or share mutual client.  Is this a ASG?

We have had a participant sending us letters for months, warning us that we might receive a QDRO but we should not honor it because it will be bogus (in this case it is a child support QDRO and he claims and has provided some documentation suggesting he is current on child support).

Today we received the QDRO.  It is certified by a court and, under normal circumstances, we would approve and process it.

Questions:

1) should we tell the participant we received the QDRO and give him time to respond?

2) should we give the participant a copy of the QDRO (if not by default, should we if he asks for it)?

3) should we give him additional information, like the cover letter with the attorney's contact information (if not by default, should we if he asks for it)?

My preference is to honor the QDRO if it has been approved by the court, but we have had at least one QDRO submitted in error in the past that was processed (i.e. the account divided and paid out to the AP) and it turned into a big mess.  Our normal process is not to look outside the four corners of the QDRO document, but I want to avoid future headaches.

EDIT:  To add some context requested by some of the questions: 

• "We" refers to the delegate of the Administrator tasked with approving QDROs.
• I refer to the Order as a QDRO, because we have already determined that it satisfies the criteria necessary to be approved as Qualified.
• Our process does call for notification of receipt of the Order, but not necessarily providing an actual copy of the Order, and definitely not for providing additional information, such as cover letters and attorney contact information.

The big questions revolve around how much additional information we should provide to the participant upon request, and whether we should give any credence to non-QDRO related information (such as the participant's objection), and if we need to give the Participant time to respond before proceeding.

We are moving a 401(k) from another provider to our platform.  The plan has both related and regular rollover.  We set up 2 separate money types to keep the funds separate.  I'm being told that I need to find out the prior sources that the related rollover came from, like deferral, match, etc.  I have never heard anything like this before.  Is this correct?   At prior employers, we never got this information, and I wouldn't know what to do with it if I had it.  Thanks. 

Client is looking to add after-tax  (voluntary) contributions to their current safe harbor match plan.

I understand the ACP testing and top heavy issues that arise with after-tax contributions, but I am trying to determine if the client is required to provide the Safe harbor match to the after-tax contributions.  Can anyone provide some guidance?  Thanks.

So our firm took over the audit of a 403(b) Plan, YE 12/31/20 (yes, 2020, don't ask). The plan document we have shows that it is written as a "Safe-Harbor" 403(b) Plan, with a match equal to 100% of deferrals on the first 3% of compensation and then 50% of deferrals on the next 2%. However, in going into the participant testing, the first person picked for testing had $19,500 of deferrals, ok. When the match was tested, the matching contribution was equal to 5% of compensation, not 4%. Anomaly? No, anybody with greater than 5% of deferrals received a 5% match.

We noted that the document does allow for a matching contribution, and it's defined as discretionary. Question brought up is whether the extra 1% can be considered a discretionary match, and, what, if any, ACP testing would have to be performed? To complicate matters, there is no TPA retained by this employer, so it is a big old mess.

Thanks for any replies.

I have a client who was reviewing entry and discovered they missed two EE's that were eligible 1/1/2022.  They are going to provide the enrollment information ASAP.

There is no match, so just the missed deferral

If they EE's return the forms and indicate they do not want to defer, do you still have to provide a QNEC for the MDO?

Their NHC ADP average is low, if they return the form and want to defer, 10% can i use that % for my correction instead of waiting until next year when i do the ADP test?

I appreciate your help.

Thanks

A plan with a pooled arrangement allows inservice withdrawals for amounts that have accumulated for at least two years in the plan. What would be the best way to determine the amount for such a withdrawal at this time since account balances are lower now than they were two years ago due to the market's volatility over the last few months?  Since there won't be a 2022 contribution, basing the withdrawal on the balance from two years ago could result with a distribution from a participant's account exceeding their 1/1/22 balance.  Doing an interim val on this sizable plan just because one participant requests an inservice withdrawal seems unreasonable - I'm hoping there's a better solution. 

So we asked Relius why we could not get our Lifetime income numbers to work and they said:

Quote

Prior to generating any reports or results, the user must download needed tables and updates into Relius. These are global and are done by choosing Utilities / Update Global Tables from the main menu. The two tables are (a) the Ten-Year Uniform Life and (b) the Ten-Year constant maturity Treasury (CMT) securities yield rate for the first business day of the last month of the period to which the benefit statement relates.

These rates must be updated monthly and are available from FIS. They are typically available for download by the fifth business day of the following month

What they don't mention is WHERE we get the rates.  Anyone know?

Also would anyone know what the math is to caluclate the benefits if say I needed to do it in Excel?

          I have a 401(k) Plan that had a required contribution of about $55,000 for Plan Year 2020. This required contribution didn't get deposited until 4/22/22. Given the pandemic and a downturn in business, even though the client wanted to make this contribution in a timely manner, the soonest they were able to make the deposit was late this past April. I would like to hear from someone who has had a client in the same situation (as I am sure that this has got to be a somewhat common situation) and what they did about it. Also, if the IRS got involved, what relief were they willing to give.

Thanks for the help

Can plan allow distribution event to be "later of" separation from service or a specified date? 

Hello everyone,

My understanding is that the 2% Shareholder Insurance Premium is included in Code 415 Compensation (aka Current Includable Compensation), W-2 Wages (aka 6041 and 6051 Compensation) and Wages under Code 3401(a) (aka Wages for Income Tax Withholding), but it's excluded from Code 415 Safe Harbor Compensation. I want confirmation that the 2% Shareholder Insurance Premium is a taxable fringe benefit (per IRS Publication 15-B) that is excludable from Plan Compensation under the exclusion "All fringe benefits (cash and noncash), reimbursements or other expense allowances, moving expenses, deferred compensation, and welfare benefits." Thank you.

I have a plan where all the NHCEs who are eligible for profit sharing have terminated and are 0% vested. I am trying to max out the owner and his wife to their respective 415 limits via a profit sharing contribution using a new comparability formula which I can easily do; however, I have to give the employees a roughly 20% profit sharing contribution. Luckily, they didn’t get paid very much in the current year and the owner and his wife are getting over 95% of the employer contribution. I know I can’t rely on NHCEs for general testing if they don’t have some vesting. What are my options to make the employees somewhat vested so I can rely on them? I have heard of an amendment that you can make to give them testing? If you can do this, do you just list the employees names in the amendment and state what level of vesting you are giving them? Can you just give the employees you are relying on more vesting but exclude others? 

An ESOP's normal form of distribution is a 5-year installment; the plan document allows that the remaining payments may be accelerated to a single lump sum distribution at the Plan Administrator's discretion.  The sponsor then adopts by resolution a distribution policy that restricts the acceleration to terminated participants, depending upon available cash flow; retirees will be paid installments.  Their ERISA counsel insists that this class-based distinction is non-discriminatory, and besides, the retirees benefit by continuing to enjoy gains from the future stock value growth.

As of 12/31/21 there are three retirees(2 non-hce & 1 hce) paid by installment; and two terminees they want to accelerate, 1 non-hce of <$5k and 1 HCE(former 5% key) with a $750k account balance. The retirees installments are less than $300k, and their total balances are less than $700k.

1.  Is the determination to accelerate distributions subject to BRF?

2. How would you structure that test, amounts distributed this year vs total balances, ratios of eligible distribution amounts, other?

We have a 401k/PS plan that provided 100% vesting for Employer discretionary PS contributions.  When we prepared the cycle 3 restatement, we included a change in that vesting schedule making it 2-6 graded. The restatement was effective 1/1/2021 and the employer signed it 4/15/2021.  Eligibility requirements are 1 yos/21 yoa and 1/1 7/1 entry dates.   One employee hired 1/21/2020, so met eligibility at 1/21/2021 and entered the plan 7/1/2021.  Does this participant have to be 100% vested following the pre amendment provision or is he subject to the amended graded schedule since he did not become a Participant until after the later of the restatement's effective date or adoption date?

The plan document makes reference to an Employee who is a Participant as of the later of the date such amendment is adopted or the date it becomes effective being required to have his Vested interest as of such date not less than it would have been without regard to such amendment.

Thank you

A plan's normal retirement age/date is the later of age 65 or the fifth anniversary of the commencement of participation. 

The Plan also provides for the one-year hold-out rule for both eligibility and vesting. 

Facts: Employee is over 70 y/o but has not yet reached the fifth anniversary of participation. Assume the employee is eligible to participate and has not yet vested in the account. The participant incurs a break in service and is not expected to ever work 1,000 HOS again. The participant, therefore, is suspended (likely indefinitely) from participating and will not again earn a YOS for vesting purposes. 

Question: Even though the participant is suspended from participating and earning vesting credit due to the hold-out rule, is the clock still sticking on the fifth anniversary to each the normal retirement date such that the participant will become vested five years from the first day of the first plan year in which the participant entered the plan (which has not yet occurred)?

Where in EPCRS does it indicate that contributions made just for HCE's due failures applicable to HCEs are not going to cause nondiscrimination problems.

So HCE's deferral election was not implemented.  QNEC / Match make up not required.  There must be something in EPCRS that says if I correct for an HCE the correction does not create a nondiscrimination issue.  Where is that?

A pension plan is terminating.  One of the participants who has a distribution over $5,000, has to get a waiver of the J&S annuity from her spouse in order to get a lump sum distribution.

Problem is:  spouse is incarcerated and has been so from the time they were married.  How could she get his waiver especially if she has not been in direct communication with him for years? Can she get some sort of court order that the marriage has been abandoned?  Is there a precedent case for this?  

Company A acquires Company B in a stock acquisition.  Employees of Company are immediately moved to Company A, Company B dissolves.  Company A sponsors a retirement plan; the plan does contain provisions that employees acquired in a 410(b)(6) transaction are excluded through the transition period.  A couple of questions --

• Does the fact that employee were transferred to Company A negate the transition period in regards to those employees?  I don't think it does.  The employees were still acquired as part of a 410(b)(6) transaction; it is essentially what happens in an asset sale.
• Company A's plan was restated for Cycle 3 after the acquisition; no change in coverage as a result of the amendment.  Does the restatement end the transition period?  I am thinking that the restatement does not end the transition period, but I am a little more uneasy about this part.

Thanks for any guidance.