Our company offers employer paid medical, dental, std, ltd, and group life and dependent medical and dental is offered on a pre-tax payroll deduction. Our renewal was July 1 and we wanted to make some changes but due to TPA delays were not able to. Can we change the plan before July 1 next year to a cafeteria plan to include vision and supplemental life? We were thinking of offering "benefit dollars" and any benefit dollars not spent would automatically go into the flexible spending account we offer which includes unreimbursed medical and dependent care. In setting the benefit dollars we were also considering using the cost per employee from last year for fixed costs and claims. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

We have a self-funded plan with about 875 participants and a $50,000 specific deductible with a $100,000 deductible for one dependent child. Our contract until July 1 was a 12/15 and now the TPA has changed it to a 12/12 for specific and aggregate with the intention of changing it to a paid contract in 2001. Can someone explain the difference between a 12/12 and a paid contract? I am afraid we won't be able to change carriers next year because of this type of contract.

I am seeking recommendations for a Service Provider for a large (2,000 + participants) 401(k) Plan. Sponsor requires standard services (daily valuation, customer service representatives, interactive voice response and fully transactional internet capability).

There would be $0 to manage in assets - everything is in separate accounts.

Recognizing there will be recordkeeping fees,do you have any suggestions?

New DB plan effective 4/1/2000 with 9 month plan year, switching to calendar year 2nd year on. Plan sponsor is on Calendar tax year.

For section 412 minimum, charges & credits are prorated for a short plan year. I could not find such a requirement (or restriction) for Section 404 maximum, which implies that full Normal cost etc can be deducted!

Any one disagree, and if so why?

1. Where in the Code/Regs/Ruling etc can I find the medical expenses that can be reimbursed from a Section 125 plan? From general reading, I understand that the reimbursable expenses are those that can be deducted under Code section 213 (without regard to the 7.5% exclusion - but I can't find express reference!

2. Can a participant pay premiums from his/her Section 125 plan account for an individual health insurance policy to cover the benefits not provided by the employer's medical plan or if the employer does not have a medical plan?

Thanks for your help.

Anyone know where I could find an article or some information on SEC issues related to group trusts?

Thank you.

Our firm is located in Ohio and we are in the process of beginning to administer 401(k) plans. We are in need of testing and administration software but have no experience with any products or vendors. Any suggestions for reasonably priced products would be appreciated. If the vendor's web address is available, that would also be appreciated.

Thank you

Plan has 6 trustees. The space provided on the Schedule P for trustees names is not large enough.

I think that I should put as many of the trustees as will fit on the Schedule, and forget about the rest of them.

Another administrator thinks that I should file 6 Schedule P's; one for each trustee.

Another says to file 2 Schedule P's; one with 3 trustees on it; and another with the other 3 trustees.

My understanding is that only one Schedule P is filed for each trust. What are others doing in this situation. Thanks for your help.

May common law spouses be specifically excluded from welfare and pension plans? For example, assume Georgia recognizes common law marriages. Would it be allowable to have a health or pension plan maintained by a Georgia company exclude, by definition, spouses through common law marriage?

A client wants to offer prior service credit for acquisitions of key people and staff from other entities. It has done so in the past for those who came over through mergers etc. but now it wants to grant it to selected employees who will have no ownership interest in the new entity. They won't be HCEs (obviously) in the first year but more than half of the people who recieve the credit will be HCEs going forward. Does anyone see problems with this provided that there are staff members coming in with them (and they recieve the same credit)?

Assume Employer A and Employer B are sharing some employees.

Further, A and B are an affiliated service group.

Questions:

1. Compensation. It appears that, for purposes of determining contributions under any retirement plan maintained by A or B, only the compensation payable by the company sponsoring the applicable plan may be considered. See, eg, Rev. Rul 68-391. For example, In determining the contribution payable to Participant X in A's profit sharing plan, only the compensation paid by A to X can be considered (ie, the compensation paid by B cannot be considered). Does anyone know of any rule that would allow compensation from A and B to be considered?

2. Vesting: Is it allowable to count Participant X's service with A in determining whether he meets the hours of service requirements in B's plan for purposes of eligibility? vesting? contributions? It appears such service is counted for purposes of eligibility (see Rev. Rul. 67-101, 73-447 and 81-105), but we want to consider it for purposes of vesting and contributions as well.

Anyone having problems with Quantech handling the 402(g) limit or 415 limit incorrectly? Just curious if this is just a plan I ran into with one plan or an overall problem. Ran a payroll that limited the participant to $10,000 even though the limitation table says $10,500.

I have some general administrative questions about NQDC Plans, since I have never actually seen one accounted for on a recordkeeping system:

1. Can anyone give me an example of how a NQDC Account Title should appear on a recordkeeping system(e.g. ABC Trust Co., TTEE for the XYZ company NQDC Plan)?

2. Can an NQDC account be labelled as "for the benefit of" ("FBO") a particular participant without actually considering the account as funded for that participant? It would seem to me that, as long as the Trustee retains control over the account for the purposes of paying corporate creditors, then this would be acceptable. Please comment.

3. As far as I can see, because the nature of the underlying investments are at the ultimate discretion of the trustee, these accounts could be maintained on almost any type of financial recordkeeping system (e.g. retail brokerage account, retail mutual fund, retirement plan r/k like Trustmark, etc.) It seems the only limitation exists with service provider and their access to investments that the trustee might want. Any necessary internal reporting could be assembled by a CPA, in theory. Any comments?

4. Can the plan be Trusteed by person or entity other than a benefitting employee? Are there any restrictions as to who may be the trustee?

Thanks

I would be interested in hearing any opinions on a strategy for preserving plan assets. If a self-funded client were to maintain fully-insured policies on the side, and move people into them as large charges were received, could this be construed as discrimination based on health status?

The usual example I see for that type of discrimination is someone denied entry into a plan because they are expected to incur major charges. In this case they are already in the plan and incurring those charges. No one is being denied entry into a plan, it is just a question of where they end up.

It is possible some new members have been shuttled straight into the fully-insured plan, but I believe most are moved after enrollment into the self-insured plan, when the major charges start rolling in.

To my knowledge the fully-insured plan is on the whole at least as generous as the self-insured one, but I suppose it is possible that on a specific benefit the self-insured might be richer.

My obvious concern is the appearance of discrimination, since the plan you end up in is determined by your health status. These plan changes are not member elections, and happen at all times in the plan year. I don't think the member has much choice in the matter.

Has anyone seen this before?

Does anyone have a policy for fiduciary review of mortgages held in plans? We have acquired a book of business that has some plans and IRAs that hold mortgages and we aren't quite sure what responsibilities we have or what we could be liable for. We are named (directed) trustee.

Pension equity plan permits lump sum distributions at termination. EE terminates and is rehired within 60 days, but before EE receives lump sum cashout (more than $5,000). May plan be amended to restrict cash outs if EE returns to employment within a certain number of days, and no distribution occurred?

Can the 100% owner of an LLC have Schedule C income?? or since it is a corporation, must he have W-2 income???

If an employer maintains a money purchase plan and a profit sharing plan and a terminated participant is due to recieve less than $5000 from each plan, but more than $5000 total, is spousal consent required if plans provide for immediate distribution if less than $5000???

A plan does not allow rollovers into it. However, a participant was allowed a rollover into this plan. What remedies (i.e. amending the plan to allow rollovers) are recommended and what consequences are there for this plan?

Another question concerning the 457 DCP that my employer offers. Again I work for a municipal fire department of which the city contributes 4% of top step firefighter toward our 457 deferred comp plan. I have called several entities and have been given several answers to this question. Does the 8k maximum contribution as afforded by a 457 DCP include the employer match? Or can the employee contribute 8k and also have the 4% match invested? It should be known that the city's 4% match is not includable in our annual gross income as defined in section 457.