How does Quantech come up with the total number of employees on line 6 of the 5500 Count Report? Specifically what status does any employee have to be? And how does it handle vested and nonvested balances of terminated employees? Does it count people who have been paid out their vested balance and the only remainng balance is a forfeiture amount waiting to be released at a later date?

I am rewriting the Leave of absence policy and am looking for standards regarding the length or service an employee should have to be eligible for a Leave of Absence.

I apologize in advance for not knowing much about this, and am hoping someone can answer my question and point me in the direction of further information.

If a group currently self-funds and also offers a flex spending option to cover co-pays, co-insurance, etc. must the plan hold a new open enrollment for the flex option if they are now offering an increased dental benefit? There will be an open enrollment for the new dental benefit which now covers orthodontia. May eligible employees 1) sign up for flex through an open enrollment and/or 2) increase or decrease the amount withheld? Thanks for any input, I am going to search as much as I can in the meantime.

Can a sponsor of a simple 401(k) plan terminate that plan and establish another plan (e.g. cross tested profit sharing plan), during the same year, or would that violate the exclusive plan requirement, resulting in disqualification of the simple 401(k) plan?

It seems clear that a simple K cannot be established where another plan existed and benefits accrued, but my question is the reverse.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of using a group annuity contract that has underlying mutual funds for a 401k paln with 50 participants ?

I am a new Quantech user, the tech support is closed and I have to get this plan done! Here's the scenario. I have a 100% vested participant who took a distribution of her entire account balance during the plan year. She is not terminated and rec'd an allocation of the forfeitures. I can't get the system to calculate her vested balance correctly. Her vesting years of service are correct and when I go to the account screen it actually says that she is 100% vested, however the vested balance column is 0.00. Does anyone have any good troubleshooting ideas?

I was laid off by a government contractor whose COBRA I picked up. After making 3 premium payments, I was told the contractor terminated the plan and my last premium would be returned to me. The successor contractor did not pick me up and denies any responsibility for my COBRA. Although the former companiy still exists I cannot find out if they still have a contract with the same insurance company. Who is responsible for continuing my COBRA? I am a cancer patient and need the medical coverage.

An employer had an existing profit sharing plan, and intended to add 401(k)and safe harbor matching provisions effective 4/1/00 (we have written documentation of this). The document and safe harbor notice (which was timely met, by the way) were prepared specifying a 1/1/2000 effective date (instead of 4/1/2000).

The employer feels that this was a scrivener's error and wishes to base the match on compensation beginning 4/1/00 (rather than 1/1). We feel the employee safe harbor notice must be followed despite the apparent error. Any thoughts on this?

An eyewitness account from New York City, on a cold day in December:

A little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, "My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?" "I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's reply.

The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel.

By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes. She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, "No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?"

As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears in his eyes, answered the question with these words "Are you God's Wife?"

Cute story, from the Internet (not my own):

As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home.

As I sat down behind the bench on the first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was. "We're behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.

"Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very discouraged."

"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet."

If you have a DB Plan which only allows lump sum distributions of $5,000 or less (involuntary distributions) and your Plan has not been amended for GATT yet, it is my understanding that you do not have the requirement of doing the "greater of" calculation because involuntary cash-outs are not protected by 411(d)(6). See Reg. 1.417(e)-1(d)(10). What do others think about this?

Is there any safe-harbor non-discrimination test available for testing for non-discrimination as to eligibility or benefits for either a self-insured medical or group term life insurance plan, as opposed to doing full-blown tests pursuant to the relevant Code sections?

Is there a restriction on removing those eligible for Medicare from a group health by forming a medigap sub-group with another carrier. We are trying to lower the over-all group premiums. The contributions to those over 65 will not change, but they would be off the group contract and enrolled into a group medigap policy. We understand that some will decide to stay on the group contract. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Are there any violations in this? Washington DC.

A participant attempted to roll his money over into another 401(k) plan whose funds are located at another investment company. The current investment company only makes the distribution checks out to the trustee of the plan. We had asked the trustee to deposit the check and issue a check made payable to the new investment company. The company instead endorsed the check and forwarded it on to the new investment company. The new investment company rejected it, not accepting third party checks. The CPA for the trustee is insisting that having the company deposit a rollover check and write a new check to the new investment company is illigal. The question is: Is it legal to have the company deposit the rollover check and write a check made payable to the new investment company. The participant will not see the check at all. Also, where can I find printed documentation to prove/disprove the above question.

Thank you

James

Education IRAs have a $500 contribution limit per year. Is April 15 the deadline to contribute for the prior year?

How does one go about terminating a VEBA?

I contributed $2000 to my Trad. IRA a few days ago and realized that I should have put it into a ROTH IRA.

Which sections of Form 8606 should I fill to recharacterize

the above ?

Thanks

I installed Quantech 6.0 on a "clean" machine (i.e., uninstalled Quantech 5.0 and Crystal 6.0). I then saved our custom reports in Crystal 7.0 format. When I attempted to run any custom report, Quantech would "hang" on the "Reportwriter is preparing report" statement. This happened on every report. I tried moving the reports to a single folder, etc., etc.. I just can't get this to work. I can run the report through Crystal without a problem.

Any ideas?

When amending and restating a plan whose prior document calculated vesting using an elapsed time method (which is not an option in our prototype), can you change the method of calculating vesting to 1,000 hours during each plan year without violating the anti-cutback rules? Is there anything special that would need to be done?

My multiemployer DB Plan has optional forms of benefits, do the recent anti-cutback regulations (section 411) allow me to amend and remove these optional forms or do the regs only apply to DC plans?