How is IRAs benefit a temporary worker (H1B)visa holder since I have to leave the country after the visa expired (another 5 yrs)?

Thanks

A top heavy 401(k) plan requires 21 & 1, has quarterly entry dates. Employees enter on the date "nearest" meeting the eligiblity requirements. There are several participants scheduled to enter 10/1. Since the plan is top heavy, it may benefit the employer to amend the plan to allow only a single entry date (1/1). As long as the amendment is adopted prior to the "potential 10/1 entrants" having met the eligibility requirements, I can't see why this can't be done. Am I missing anything?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Hello, my husband has about $6000 sitting in a 401k plan from an employer he left 5 years ago (only was employed there for one year). We have another 401K now with the current company, and that's where we're doing our serious retirement saving. We recently realized that we really need to start planning for our children's future college education (we have a 2 1/2 year old, a 10 month old, and new baby on the way, and we do plan on having more children later) Rather than dipping into our short term savings accounts to start college funds, we would prefer to roll the money over from the old 401K plan. While mutual funds seem the best way to go with college savings, my understanding is that in order to not pay a penalty, we would need to roll it over into an actual plan, not just invest in mutual funds.

Would a Roth IRA be a good plan for this? Or are there any suggestions on a good plan to roll that 401K $ into for college savings? Also, we don't want the money in the kid's names because it could hurt their chances of receiving financial aid in the future.

One more question - is it possible to have SEVERAL Roth IRAs opened in our name? (One for each child, just not in the kids' names)

Sorry for my ignorant questions - I'm very new to the whole financial planning world and am trying to educate myself!

Thanks for any feedback!

Participant of Keogh plan who is sole participant of plan and who is 100% shareholder of corporation sponsoring Keogh plan passed away two years ago. Decedent was a licensed professional such that the P.A. basically dissolved when he passed away. Nothing has been done with the plan. Insurance company has suggested that a non-transferable annuity be purchased and distributed out to the beneficiaries named by decedent. Insurance company is the trustee of the plan and without citation of authority feels that this would not be a taxable event as to the beneficiaries of the annuity; rather, the beneficiaries would report income as they received annuity payments. I don't know if it is really that easy. Can anyone give me some authority on this or give me their experiences in such a situation??? Thanks for your help.

I was interested in finding out the results of the 3M retirees litigaion in MN last year. Please excuse if already done just got on.

Client purported to terminate pension plan in 1997. Apparently, TPA was directed to do whatever was necessary to get it done. Client switched to new TPA sometime thereafter thinking all was well. As of a month ago, IRS has asked for 5500 for 1997. Appears that all assets are still in pension plan. Are the IRS correction programs available for purportedly terminated plans?? I know the plan may be treated as an ongoing plan under 89-87 as the assets were not distributed out w/i 1 year. Any comments?

I have a plan administrator of a governmental 401(a) plan insisting that they required to perform Nondiscrimination Testing on their plan. Are their any regulations that require a 401(a) governemental plan to have compliance testing done?

Facts: 401(k) Plan that allows participants to defer up to 15% of Compensation. Employer Match on elecevie deferrals up to 50% of the participants elective deferrals. The Employer shall not match amounts provided above in excess of 4% of the Participants Compensation.

Assumptions: The participant defers 4% of comp into the plan each pay period and has compensation for the plan year in excess of $170,000.00. The employer makes matching contribution on a per payroll basis. The employee maxes out on deferrals at $10,500 (402(g) limit). The employer gives match equal to 50% of deferrals up to 4% of comp each pay period.

Question: If the participant compensation for the plan year exceeds $170,000 and he/she hits $10,500, what is the maximun match amount? 2% of $170,000 which is $3400 or $5250 which is 50% of 10,500?

I am looking for a list of "allowed assets" or "allowed holdings " for a ROTH self directed IRA.

Or a list of prohibited assets.

Thanks

Company A sells investments for retirement plans, and performs the administration as well. That is, until company A decided to sell all of the admin. portion of their business to Company B, who is unrelated to company A.

The small group of employees of Company A, who did the admininstration were offered jobs with company B, to do the same thing they were doing at company A (but at a different location), working on the same clients, preparing the same type of work, etc. Otherwise, they would be out of a job, since Company A had no work for them.

Assume all of these affected employees were less than 100% vested in Company A's 401(k) Plan. Company B will not recognize service with Company A for any retirement plan purposes for Company B.

Other than for reasons of a possible partial plan termination of Company A's plan, would there be any reason why these employees should be fully vested in company A's plans? Any out-of-the-ordinary rules concerning their distributions from Company A's plan?

Thanks

I am working on a plan for an employer who, due to the nature of the business, has many employees who terminate before becoming eligible. The prior plan category was "ineligible" and reason not eligible was "fails hours requirement". When I enter the termination date and status of terminated; the system does not change the plan category and reason not eligible to terminated. Why? I liked the software that we used before because it actually had a status for "terminated before becoming eligible to participate". I also manually changed the plan category and reason not eligible for a terminee and after running eligibility, the software changed both of these back to "ineligible" and "fails hours requirement". I would like these employees to show on the Census Verification as terminated. Any ideas? Should I perhaps run eligibility once, reenter my overrides to category and reason, and then run eligibility again? Thanks for any input.

What are my rights to continue health insurance after the 18 month coverage of COBRA? My current job does not offer group insurance. I was layed off in March 1998 and was never informed of being on a COBRA plan. I was able to continue group coverage (paid by me) from the layed off company, but it stated that this was employee continuation health insurance coverage. On April 20, 2001 the insurance notified me that they made a mistake and my COBRA should have ended on Jan 1, 1999. The insurance company is only giving me 30 days notice and will end COBRA coverage on June 1, 2001. What are my alternatives to either extend coverage or find another provider by June 1st?

Can anyone explain 401(a) plans? I understand you can use this plan with a 457 plan for employer matches, however, when I called a couple mutual fund companies they have "never heard of such a plan". Are there any investments that can not be used in the 401a? I'm just feeling dumb calling all these places and no one has heard of this, where can I go? I am in Missouri.

Can anyone explain 401(a) plans? I understand you can use this plan with a 457 plan for employer matches, however, when I called a couple mutual fund companies they have "never heard of such a plan". Are there any investments that can not be used in the 401a? I'm just feeling dumb calling all these places and no one has heard of this, where can I go? I am in Missouri.

Company A acquired Company B. Both have 401(k) plans. Company B's plan was not terminated prior to the acquisition. Company B employees are now participating in Company A's plan, and Company B's plan is inactive, awaiting some sort of disposition.

Company A has now learned that Company B's plan has big problems, definitely some prohibited transactions, possibly disqualification issues.

Company A's plan does not want to accept any portion of the assets in Company B's plan, but may be forced to accept at least the elective deferrals in a trustee-to-trustee transfer since A's plan is a successor plan.

Can anything be done with B's deferrals other than transferring them to A's plan?

Thanks.

In a plan that covers only Salaried employees, can Hourly employees be excludable due to 500 hour/ last day rule?

If an Hourly employee has satisfied the age/service/entry date requirements for the plan, but terminates employment with less than 500 hours in a plan with a last day requirement for a contribution, is the employee excludable?

The rule seems to be that the 500 hour/ last day rule can only be used to make an employee excludable if the employee does not get a contribution "solely" because of the failure to meet one of those requirements. Since the plan described above would cause the employee to not get a contribution because of being Hourly, that would seem to indicate the employee should be includable.

However, some sources seem to indicate that the 500 hour/last day rule can be applied before considering any other reasons like employee classifications.

Self-funded company wants to try to control costs by capitating payments to providers. Asks the TPA (which provides a network of preferred providers) to negotiate a capitation scheme that other self-funded payors will use as well.

Is this allowable? If it is allowable, what is it considered? I don't think this is an insurance arrangement but I don't know. Comments?

I just found out that I will be laid off in August (After I train my replacement) due to a recent acquisition of another firm. Although my vested balance is not a lot, less than 5K, I dread the thought of paying taxes if I opted for a full disbursement. I am a full time student as well and I think I will be taking the next few months off of work so I will not be able to rollover to a new plan. I was considering rolling it over to a Roth IRA and hoped that someone could give me some suggestions for doing so. I really don't know a lot about the procedures and didn't want to sound like an idiot in my appointment with a financial advisor. Any Feedback is appreciated!!

Other than Publication 502, does anyone know of any other information regarding expenses that can be reimbursed under a medical FSA? Specifically, we are receiving questions regarding cosmetic dentistry - such as bleaching, caps, bonding, etc. Since cosmetic surgery isn't an allowable expense, is cosmetic dentistry? Any ideas on how we could determine if caps are cosmetic or not?

Mary

I'm working with a pension plan that includes a social security level income option form of payment. This provision is an old grandfathered optional form of payment, and, you guessed it, I don't have access to that prior plan document.

What I need to know is - does 'the law' require that we give the participant the right to submit either actual FICA wages or a copy the Social Security Award letter to use in calculating the optional form of payment?

Thanks.