As a general rule our Trust Department does not accept ESOPS. We have an opportunity to Trustee what seems, on the surface, to be a good plan. Can anyone point me to a resource where I can find a thorough, yet concise summary of Trustee liability with respect to ESOPs that could be used to help upper management understand and assess ESOP Trustee risk?

I just got in a form (6610) from IRS for getting a certification from them that my IRA customers are US citizens so that we can get back taxes withheld by foreign governments on dividends paid by foreign corporations. The form and the publication that came with it do not seem consistent with IRAs. I was wondering if anyone else had some experience with these forms and some ideas on how to fill them out.

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I converted about 4k to a Roth in 1998 and paid the 1/4 tax on my return. The investment however has nosedived and is worth about 40% of the original amount. Can I recharacterize the amount back to an IRA and then convert to a Roth again thus decreasing the taxable amount?

Can a participant under a cafeteria plan that offers pre-tax premium payment change health insurance from coverage under the HMO offered by the employer to the PPO offered when the premium costs for the two plans are different? (No Regulatory change in status has occurred) Also note that the plan year is April to March, but the period for changing coverage under the insurance policies is September

[This message has been edited by Amy Erlbacher Anderson (edited 06-11-99).]

Does anyone know of a web site to find industry averages for benefits in the construction industry?

Can a plan allow for rollover money to be withdrawn as a hardship distribution?

Back on 6/8/98 an employee took a loan and it slipped through at 7%, but should have been 9.5%. I'm sure we should go back and adjust it. Can we recalculate it and spread the additional interest over the remainder of the loan payments, or do we require the past due interesdt to be paid to-date? These or any other suggestions will be appreciated.

In reading the IRC regulations on controlled groups, the focus seems to be on 5 or fewer shareholders. In a situation where there are two companies and the ownership is identical, and you can meet the effective control test (5 shareholders who own 50%+), but you can not meet the controlling interest test (the group of 5 does not have 80% ownership), do you have a controlled group? I am getting confused with the situation of identical ownership (21 owners), but there are not 5 who meet the tests. Please help. Thank you.

This question has two parts. Has anyone heard of the fresh start calculation concerning after-tax contributions? How is it used? What plans could use it?

I have a plan that allows in-service withdrawals from the volunary post tax source but does not allow them from the mandatory. When calculating the taxable portion of the in service distribution should all post tax contributions be included in the calculation or only those associated with the voluntary source?

Thanks!

Must the plan pay for distribution fees or can the participant be charged the fee?

If a plan sponsor has an old 403(B) plan and a new 401(k) plan, must the 403(B) plan have a seperate trust from the 401(k) plan, or can they have one trust for both plans?

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Rob Morgan

Pension Plan Administrator

Employee eligible as Part Time worker for Health Benefits under a quasi cafeteria arrangement. At same time, in school. Opts for Health coverage from school rather than from company. Graduates and loses school coverage. Can she pick up company coverage or does she have to wait for open season.

A 401k plan has both a small employer match feature and a discretionary nonelective employer contribution component. Plan allocates discretionary contribution equally among all current participants. Plan enrolls new participants quarterly. Assume employer’s matching and discretionary contributions during the 1st two quarters of year equal, say, 90% of its contribution limit, so that only the matching contribution is made during the 2nd two quarters.

(A) Is there a discrimination problem?

(B) Can the employer require that a portion of a discretionary contribution made, say, June 15 be allocated equally in quarters 2, 3, and 4?

Thanks for any help.

An employee declined our health insurance when first eligible, and later had a health problem and found out our insurance was better than her husbands, so she signed up for ours, and she became the primary insured. Since the husband hadn't lost his insurance, were we obligated to insure her?

I am referring to the profit sharing allocation. If I read you correctly you agree that this can be done in the allocation formula but the cash bonus issue must clearly be an agreement outside but indirectly tied to the plan(except for the 401(k) deferral potential).

TPA firm in Upstate New York. Been using Datair (DC only) for ten years. The bad thing is the lack of downloading capability. Stops us cold in downloading investment data from a variety of investment houses. The good thing is it's all paid for. Quantech seems to be the standard in the industry, but I had a heart attack when I saw the costs. My question in a nutshell --- is QT worth it? We've GOT to get away from manual data input and start downloading FBO accounts. But the thought of writing the kind of checks Corbel wants is scary. I would appreciate any comments, in general, about Quantech. Any former Datair users who changed to QT, your help would be especially appreciated. Thanks very much.

I am collecting data on Flexible Work Options (i.e. telecommuting, job share) and would like to hear from anyone that has had experience in this area or who also has done research and can share their findings with me. I work for a non-profit, christian relief and development company in Washington

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Norene

[This message has been edited by norene (edited 06-16-99).]

This was posted in a Q&A column on BenefitsLink, and I wanted to get the ball rolling here:

Has anyone had any success in getting a plan approved (or believe you will) where the 3% non-elective safe harbor is the only employer allocation to the NHCES and additional Profit Sharing is allocated only to the HCES? Seems to me as long as the general test is passed it should be fine, however I do wonder about the wording in the document.

O.K. We give up. We have been looking for over one hour, in both the 401(k) Answer Book and the Pension Answer Book, for the Q&As regarding the timing of deferral deposits (e.g. 15 days and asap). Appreciate any help you may be able to give.