Dr. A retired from his practice that his colleague is continuing; thus the Plan survives. Dr A has a life insurance policy as a Plan asset and has received a distribution of all of his account balance but for the life policy. It cannot be rolled over into an IRA, nor does Dr. A desire to take ownership of the policy and pay taxes on this distribution to him. So he's left it in the Plan hoping that his old collegaue does not someday terminate the Plan prior to Dr. A's death and force the distribution to him.

Dr. A has a tree farm but did not want to set up a plan for the tree farm. But could he set up a 0% money purchase plan to accept the distribution of the life insurance policy? The policy has sufficient value such that premium payments are being funded internally by the policy itself.

What is the downside of this approach?

I would like information on the typical matching contributions that software companies are using

If you get a hardship withdrawal to pay a dependent's college tuition, will you have to prove that you used the money for that tuition when you file taxes? What if you don't use the money for tuition?

Scenario:

The Plan Trustee is planning a change in plan investments. The plan currently offers both fixed and variable annuities w/ A insurance company). The Trustee is planning to move all funds from A to B (mutual fund company), which of course does not offer a fixed annuity product. The "market value adjustment" to liquidate the fixed annuity product will result in a substantial penalty to participants at this time. The fixed contract allows an employee to move 20% of their fixed account each year without incurring the market value adjustment.

Question:

Can the trustee require each employee to liquidate 20% of their fixed account each year to help move toward the day when all funds will be with B, while attempting to minimize the market value adjustment? Will this require a plan amendment or is the trustee's decision, together w/ appropriate employee notice to those affected employees sufficient?

Is anyone aware of any guidance as to how long a time is "reasonable" for purposes of 72(p)(2)(B)? I have a participant who is applying for a 20 year loan for acquisition of a dwelling unit now that is intended to become the principal residence in 18 months (individual is intending to live there after retiring in 18 months). Is 18 months a "reasonable time"?

Does anyone have any thoughts on permissible exceptions (if any) to the requirement that a waiver be irrevocable under the 401(k) regs (perhaps for an extended period of time, say 10 years or so). I'm including the thread under this category instead of the 401(k) heading because the waiver that I am contemplating would be from an integrated profit sharing plan. I'm not sure that there are any exceptions, but if anyone can think of one, please give me your ideas.

My wife and I have been contributing to our ROTH IRA for 3-4yrs now. We are in the process of purchasing our first home and were wondering if we could use some of this money from the Roth towards the down payment?

If so, are there any stipulations and how do we go about doing this?

Thanks,

Ian

An S-Corp has two employees,both of whom are owners. The corporation establishes a PS plan for calendar year 2000,then decides not to make a contribution.They now have a plan with two participants and zero assets. I can't find anything that exempts them from filing a 5500 for 2000,but it doesn't make sense to report on a plan that has no assets. If they were partners instead of owners they would not have to file a 5500EZ until they had $100,000 in assets.Has anyone run into this situation before?

A W2 is issued for military retired pay and income tax is paid on this income. Therefore, as I asked previously, is this considered as income for the purpose of contributing to a Roth IRA?

Can anyone tell me if a non-profit utility company that is owned by a city government can start a 401k? I think that they can do a 457, but they would prefer to do a 401k.

Can anyone tell me if a non-profit utility company (owned by a municipality) start a 401k? I think that they can do a 457, but am unsure about a 401k. I've asked everyone that I can think of and nobody seems to know for sure.

Company A has a PS Plan. Company B has a PS Plan. Company A is owned 100% by Company B.

Eligibility provisions to enter both PS Plans are the same (age 20.5 & 1 YOS). Provisions for PS (allocation) eligibility are the same (employ on last day of plan year and 1000 hours of service.)

Participant X transfers from Company A to Company B during 2000. Does he share in the 2000 PS allocation in both plans, based on his compensation for each respective company? Is it correct to assume that he did not, technically, terminate employment in Company A since he went to work for Company B and they are part of the same controlled group?

Looking for some confirmation that I'm not overlooking any important details. Any immediate help will be greatly appreciated!

I have a client that has 146 ee's. 1 ee is Owner/HCE, 28 are regular ee's. These 29 ee's are the only eligible ee's for health insurance. The other 117 are ineligible because they are part time or seasonal. What can we do to pass the NON-DISCRIMINATION CLASSIFICATION TEST? The safe harbor % is 20.75% and this company is coming up as 19.31%. They also have a lot of the p/t ee's on leave of absence. Please advise.

Phyllis Ostendorf

Aside from font, background color, general links in the menu bar, has anyone had any experience in customizing the Web module, successful or otherwise?

For instance, has anyone created a hotlink that is specific to the Plan of the logged-in participant? We'd be interested in having a hotlink to a report that lists the performance of funds specific to a Plan and a report that gives some information about the model protfoilios. A general link will not work for this purpose.

What about a hyperlink to the fund name listed an investment option in the main window?

We'd like to control the order on investment options listed in the main window other than alphabetically, i.e., US funds, foreign funds, fixed income funds grouped together. It'd be nice to show model portfolios in a separate group from the mutual fund options.

Our programmer is going to investigate the extent to which the web module can be customized. We'd appreciate knowing if anyone else has made any attempts in this regard.

Profit sharing, salary deferral/401(k) and matching contributions allocated to key employees are considered "employer contributions" for purposes of calculating the minimum 3 percent or 4 percent top heavy/super top heavy contribution. Are key employee after tax contributions included in this calculation?

Participant is retiring and received a quote for an immediate annuity of $3,500 for life only or $3,000 for joint & survivor (w/his wife as benef.). What participant wants to do is elect the $3,500 life only, but then direct $500 of each monthly payment towards the purchase of a life insurance contract which would provide the wife with survivorship income in the event of death of the participant. The term the insurance agent is using is "pension maximization". I am not finding much information in my usual reference manuals or internet web sites regarding a transaction such as this. My question: can this be done?

I would like to know the ramifications of changing the beneficiary of my 401k/IRA accounts from named individuals to a trust. I realize this is a broad question, so to narrow it down, I would like an answer based on my specific 401k/IRA beneficiaries and my specific trust. I will now explain these.

I have 401k and IRA accounts with my spouse as the primary beneficiary and four individuals as contingent beneficiaries. Likewise, my wife's 401k and IRA accounts have me as the primary beneficiary and the same four individuals as contingent beneficiaries.

In addition, my spouse and I have a joint trust (revocable and non-by-pass) with the spouse as sole beneficiary. Upon the death of the surviving spouse, the trust proceeds go to the above-mentioned four individuals or if deceased their survivors. It is the intent of my spouse and I that all of our assets be distributed as provided for by the trust. Thus, to get as close to the trust provisions as we can without naming the trust as the beneficiary of our 401k and IRA accounts, we have named our 401k and IRA beneficiaries as described above.

However, so naming our 401k/IRA beneficiaries may not result in the same distribution of assets as provided by the trust. If both my wife are deceased and one or more of the 401k/IRA contingent beneficiaries predeceases us or dies at the same time, then the 401k/IRA beneficiary form provides that the amount of those accounts that would have gone to those beneficiaries would instead be divided equally among the remaining living contingent beneficiaries. However, had the trust been the beneficiary of the 401k/IRA, that amount would have gone to the survivors of those deceased beneficiaries and not been divided equally among the living contingent beneficiaries.

What are ramifications of making the trust the beneficiary or contingent beneficiary of our 401k/IRA accounts? Can the trust be so designated? Does the trust have to be irrevocable at the death of the spouse who has the account in his/her name? Does designating the trust as the 401k/IRA beneficiary affect spousal rollover provisions? Does doing so mean the 401k/IRA must be emptied within five years? What are other undesirable results of making the trust the beneficiary?

I'm looking for assistance with an issue. This Company my friend works for has an employee stock purchase program setup that has it's stock purchase every 6 months.

Recently, just days before the first 6 month period ended, everyone (approx 100 employees) in the ESPP was told there were no shares available for purchase and the money that has been getting deducted from their bi-monthly paychecks was refunded with the June 30th paycheck.

The stock price has dropped to its lowest level in the past 6 months and has more than doubled in price since.

Is the refunding of their money (with no interest either) legal or allowed to be done ??? It was mentioned approximately 90 days ago by the company that there may be a problem with the program, but no details.

Looking for any assistance, guidance or referrals anyone can provide. Thanks in advance...

Hello - Does anyone have an Adoption Flexible Spending Account as part of their benefits program? If so, may I have a copy of your policy? And, how well has it worked for your organization? Any information on this would greatly be appreciated.

I'm kind of continuing the discussion that started in thread 10608, but am starting a new thread because the following issues did not come up. I'd like to hear other people's input on the questions below. When merging the MPP plan into a profit-sharing plan,

• do you need to requalify the MPP plan for GUST first?
  
• do all the contributions need to be made by 12/31/2001 if you want to merge the plans 12/31/2001?
  
• if you don't have a profit-sharing plan, can you just amend the MPP to a profit-sharing plan, or do you need to start a profit-sharing plan so that you can merge them?