The instructions for filing 5500's for a plan covering unrelated employers seem to permit a general filing for the sponsoring Er (plan no 333), and abbreviated filings fo adopting employers. There is a final paragraph, however, and it seems to say that if the plan does not have commingled assets then each adopting employer is on their own for filing. For 401k's does this mean 5500C/R, fully completed, for each?

Employee D is an employee of Company C. Her father, F, was a substantial owner of C. Due to Section 318, D was considered to be a Key Employee. F sold his entire interest in C and is no longer an officer. Now that F has gotten rid of his interest in C, is D still a Key Employee? I know there is a five-year look back. Does the five-year look back still apply to an individual who was a Key Employee only because of stock attribution? Does Section 302©(2) have any application here?

Is a spouse's post-tax medical insurance premium an allowable reimbursable expense for a participant's cafeteria plan? If so, how would this amount be verified without using the spouse's wage statement which would indicate this premium is being paid after taxes are withheld?

Anyone aware of any reported cases discussing the conflict of interest which arises when a non-public employer can't find an independent institutional trustee and the CEO volunteers to act as trustee? These situations are ripe for fiduciary problems when the ESOP has to buy shares from the company and the CEO/trustee essentially negotiates with himself.

Can a profit sharing plan that makes discretionary annual contributions, allocate a portion of its annual contribution to the plan to a greater than 5% shareholder who is still employed receiving a salary but is receiving required minimum distributions from the plan since he reached age 70 1/2?

After converting a traditional IRA to a Roth, I want to now tranfer the Roth from a bank (I'm not happy with) to an existing Roth brokerage account. Can I simply close one Roth account and deposit the check into the Roth brokerage account without tax consequences? My bank says no, unless I have the check from made out to the broker (for which they charge a fee). That doesn't make much sense to me. (One of the reasons I'm taking whatever money I still have in that bank and putting it elsewhere--very little of what they say makes sense and very little of what they say they'll do gets done.:<)

------------------

Alan Stein

stein@math.uconn.edu

http://www.math.uconn.edu/~stein

A surviving spouse was the beneficiary of her deceased husband's account balances in several qualified plans. Norwally the surving spouse would establish a spousal IRA naming her revocable trust as beneficiary. Instead, can the spouse establish three separate spousal IRAs, naming one of her three childen as beneficiary thereof? This might increase the payout period. Any thoughts? Thanks. Ed

I am looking for companies that offer paid time benefits (i.e. vacation, sick, holiday pooled together). Pls. let me know if they accrue days or hours and how many hours/days per year.

Thanks,

Jeri Mucha

Would a hospital indemnity plan which is combined in the same policy with a minim

al medical expense benefit (e.g., doctor's office visits up to $300 a year) be subject to HIPAA?

Could someone give me the updated "thinking" on the value of a company vehicle to an employee. Basically we're in the process of making an offer to someone and want to consider the value of the vehicle to the employee as a part of his salary package. I've heard numbers from $6,000 to $8,000 per year..but am not certain if that's current thinking or not. Any help would be appreciated. THANKS

(Posted by Sheila K for Doug Brown)

im looking into starting a Roth IRA and need any help i can get as to what kind to start or where to get a good one

thanks

------------------

send emails to:

funkymonkey@hempseed.com

I HAVE A PLAN WHERE THE EMPLOYER MATCH IS BASES ON 50% OF SALARY DEFERRALS. THE ADP TEST DID NOT PASS, THEREFORE REFUNDS NEED TO BE MADE. DOES THE EMPLOYER MATCH THE AMOUNT DEFERRED, OR THE AMOUNT DEFERRED, LESS ANY REFUNDS?

IS A FIDUCIARY BOND REQUIRED IN THIS SITUATION: THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE PLAN CONSIST OF TWO PARTNERS AND THEIR SPOUSES. THE TRUSTEES OF THE PLAN ARE THE TWO PARTNERS. THE SPOUSES HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE ASSETS IN THE PLAN.

WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD TO LOCATE MISSING PARTICIPANTS?

What practical experiences are people having on the various "discrimination" tests that are required for cafeteria plans under Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code?

-- Is the testing generally done by the employer or by a service provider?

-- Is testing actually being performed at all?

-- Is there still very little (any?) IRS enforcement in this area?

-- Any experiences in the not-for-profit area (such as dealing with related entities that arguably should be viewed as one)?

In Texas the new limited liability partnership laws and the IRS check box regulations make it possible to convert a Texas corporation to a limited liability corporation and elect to have the entity to continue to be taxed as a corporation with out having a taxable event. This is being considered by several Texas corporations as a way to avoid the Texas Franchise Tax. The question is will the entity be able to continue to have Qualified Employer Securities in the Profit Sharing Plans? The reorganized LLPs will have partnership units which will function exactly as stock. There will be no individual equity accounts but rather a stock account. Any thoughts? Is the ERISA definition of Qualified Employer Security broad enough to include this strange ownership units?

An earlier query from me concerned conversion of a Sep to a Roth. I wanted to know if this year's (1998) contribution to the Sep would still be considered an adjustment to income.

Besides this forum, I posted similar inquiries at two other web sites, one of which is the IRS.

IRS flatly states that I may not "recharacterize a current year's contribution to a SEP-IRA over to Roth IRA."

Apparently I may only "convert" previous year's SEP to a Roth.

Comments?

I and my wife have IRAs through mutual funds. My question is can we set up an IRA account with a stock broker, contribute say $2000, and then direct the broker as to a stock(s) to buy? And then sell later and invest in another stock, all as part of a tax-deferred or tax-free IRA.

Controlled group? Yes, no or depends...

A parent is a 100% owner of a company. The child is the 100% owner of another company. Would these two companies be part of the same controlled group?

Thanks for any input.

Do not process loan payment transactions unless you have downloaded all the fixes from the web site. Posting loan payment transactions before downloading fixes may cause some of your loans to jump forward to the first payment in 2000. If this happens, do not reverse the transaction. Call Quantech support first.