FT William document with  "New Comparability - One Group per Participant" selected as the Allocation Method.  The are only three participants; owner, owner's daughter and job-cost estimator, all earning roughly $100k this year.

Estimator quit after year end.  Owner wants to skew contributions in favor of himself and daughter, if possible.  He's also considering no contribution. 

Limited reading sees to indicate that I could at least limit the estimator to 70% of what owner and daughter (owner by attribution) get - say 17.5% of pay vs 25% of pay.  But I get the sinking feeling that I have to look at the "reasonable business classification" portion of the Average Benefit Test to do so.

So, is Owner/Non-Owner a reasonable business classification?  All I find are "great debates" from ASPPA and limited examples in the regs.

The 2007 415 regs state  the 415$ limit post 65 is the lessor of the age 62-65 $limit increased by the lessor  of the statutory factors or the ratio of the (benefit at the asd)/(benefit at age 65)* 62-65$ limit. the "benefit" used is to be exclusive of post 65 accruals. Suppose someone enters the Plan at 65. then this second ratio at any asd will be 0/0. If this ratio is 1 then there is no adjustment to the $ limit post age 65 since 1 is less than the statutory increase. If it is infinite(/0) then we use the statutory(5%&applicable qx)increase since it is clearly the lessor. Alternatively,  is the reg just poorly written since in all thereg  examples the participant  had an accrual at 65; so just use the lessor of the plan's ae and the statutory basis which is what seems to make sense and what everyone has espoused for years? Note the 10 yr reduction would of course apply thru 74 and am not considering here forms other than a straight  life annuity.

DOL Regs 2520.104-50 regarding short plan years/deferral of audit report.

(b) Deferral of accountant's report. A plan administrator is not required to include the report of an independent qualified public accountant in the annual report for the first of two consecutive plan years, one of which is a short plan year, provided that the following conditions are satisfied:

(1) The annual report for the first of the two consecutive plan years shall include:

(i) Financial statements and accompanying schedules prepared in conformity with the requirements of section 103(b) of the Act and regulations promulgated thereunder;

See 103(b) from US Code (definition of financial statements)

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/1023

Taken from this link:

(2)

I don;t understand how a non-profit could be subject to prevailing wage laws,, but it has something to do with their clients working on federal projects under some "put people to work" program.

Anyone see any reason why this cannot be done in a 403b plan?

What software do you use that you wouldn't give up unless they pried your cold, dead fingers from the keyboard?

Mine: ClipMate (for Windows). Records every copied item, so I can copy (contol-C) multiple text items in sequence and then go back to fetch any one or more of them (for purposes of pasting into a new text document, for example). The standard Windows clipboard (control-C) only holds one copied item at a time, and overwrites any earlier-copied item.

I can even paste the earlier-copied items one by one into an ordered list in a new text document, by hitting control-V repeatedly.

Does any body who owns or runs a TPA have a good grasp how tax reform may affect our industry?  If so I'd be interested in your thoughts on whether your typical TPA is a "Professional Services Firm".  Would be nice to take advantage of the 20% deduction on pass through income if it's available for a lowly pension administrator :).

My Ex-husband and i were divorced 3 years ago. I completed the QDRO paperwork, paid for the processing and received a response back from the administrator stating there were no funds in the account. Any suggestions on what or how to proceed collecting from my Ex the funds that were in the decree? FYI, my attorney took another job and doesn't return my calls so I'm really in limbo at this point. 

403(b) plan for a 501(c)(3) organization - now owners. A highly compensated employee terminates on, say, 12/31/2015. Receives a last paycheck in early January of 2016. A deferral is withheld from that final paycheck in 2016. Plan has a last-day requirement for match, so no match received on that 2016 deferral.

When testing for coverage/nondiscrimination, is he counted as a HC for 2016? Or since he formally terminated employment on 12/31/2015, is he not considered HC for 2016?

P.S. - don't waste any time on this, as it is purely "idle" curiosity - didn't have any effect on any testing, etc.

I paid excise tax for an LLC (Form 5330) relating to employee benefit plans and just wondering if this is a deductible expense for the federal and CA state return. Hoping for some insights. Thanks!

Last year, Plan Sponsor amended their document mid-year to change from a safe harbor non-elective to a safe harbor match.  A new notice was issued and safe harbor matching contributions have been made ever since.  Previously, the plan provided for a discretionary match as well. I understand that this was an impermissible change mid-year re-Notice 2016-16 and needs to be corrected.  However, I am inquiring on thoughts on how to best correct this issue.  I'm also struggling on the match piece as participants likely signed up once changed to the safe harbor match in expectation that they would receive 4%. 

Thank you!

There seems to be a consensus, based on various Q&As on this forum, that an employer cannot maintain a 5305-SEP and a 401k in the same year.  I am not sure I agree with that.  Can someone please provide a source for this?  I see on the IRS website that an employer may not use a Form 5305--SEP if it maintains any other qualified plan -"maintained" means even if no contributions are made - but if an employer terminated the SEP as of 2/28/18 and then started up a 401(k) plan on 3/1/18, wouldn't that be acceptable?  In that instance, the employer is not "maintaining" both plans.  Yes, it would have had both plans in 2018, but they weren't maintained at the same time.  I can't find anything from the IRS that would prohibit this fact pattern.  Any thoughts?  Thanks!

We have a 401(k) plan sponsored by a Limited Partnership (Hotel) where one of the 5%+ owners is a working manager taking draws but no W-2 wages.  Would she be included in ADP testing?  Her daughter also works for the hotel but does receive W-2 wages (she owns 2.5%).  Definition of compensation per the plan doc is W-2 (no exclusions).

Two Buy Backs in one year..... yikes.  Never experience one, yet two in 3 months....

An employee deferred Roth to a 401k prior to us.  He also had pre tax monies.  Said employee terminated and rolled Roth dollars to a Roth IRA.  Rolled pretax dollars to IRA.  $15k in forfeitures at time of distributions.  Employee wants to restore his dollars to get the forfeitures back.

What are your thoughts on Roth buy-back?  Specifically, the Roth start year.

I see you can't Roll a Roth IRA to 401k.  But we aren't talking about a Rolling back....

The Roth start year starts over when Roth from 401k goes to Roth IRA.....  probably why you can't roll Roth IRA to 401k.....

And then there is the IRA provider (E-trade).

If the Roth can be brought back into the plan.  How would you handle the Roth start year situation?

Company A and Company B form a controlled group.  Company A sponsors a safe harbor match 401(k) Plan, which Company B has adopted as a participating employer.  There is one employee, who receives compensation from both entities, but all of the deferrals have been made through Company A.  For purposes of calculating the safe harbor match, I believe I should aggregate the compensation from both companies.  For deduction purposes, should the safe harbor match contribution for this person be divided prorata based on compensation, or should the entire deduction be taken by Company A, since the deferrals were made by the employee from his Company A compensation. 

I have a Top Heavy Safe Harbor/Cross Tested Plan.

Compensation for plan purposes is participation compensation.  Obviously, the Top Heavy Minimum must use the entire year's compensation.

Must the Gateway therefore be based on the entire year's compensation?

I have a one man Corp since 2003 and opened a 401k solo plan with fidelity. I am finding value of this portfolio crossed threshold of  250k. So I plan filing 5500EZ by March 15 i.e when I file company taxes.

How far back can IRS audit this? How will they know who much actually I deposited each year etc considering stock market changes and I lost money few years.  It should have been 250K in 13  years considering my deposit have been 20k each year. Is it normal for solo accounts?

We have a client who owns two companies and both have employees including himself.  One is a corporation; the other is a LLC.  He has W-2 wages of about $190,000 from the corporation and over a million from the LLC.   Both companies are adopting employers to the same retirement plan and all employees are covered for both entities.

Question:  In calculating the maximum benefit he can have for 2017, are we allowed to use both his W-2 wages plus enough K-1 income to get him up to the maximum we can take into account for the year of $270,000?  Our gut reaction is "yes" but one of us has some doubts.

We are grateful for any help!

Has anyone seen any successful document amendments for Plans to begin using forfeitures to fund SH contributions? 

I was hoping that FIS Relius would have released their good-faith amendments by now, but as I understand it they haven't.

https://www.relius.net/News/TechnicalUpdateDetails.aspx?T=P&1=1&ID=1103 

Thanks in advance! 

A company incorrectly made contributions to a defined contribution plan on behalf of an employee for over 20 years.  The employee received  monthly statement and was told a year prior to retirement she had excess of $120K in benefits in the account.  Error was discovered and funds forfeited, but the company settled with her on the side to pay her the amount of the benefit.  

Question:  what kind of W2 compensation is this reportable as? Is this wages that go in box 1? It was agreed that 2/3 of the settlement amount would be W2 and 1/3 reported on a 1099-MISC.

Thanks in advance. 

We currently administer a profit sharing plan, the employer may possibly be selling the business.  The purchaser will be buying the assets of the company and changing the name of the company, as well.

I know you can't have a plan w/o a sponsor, but is there a specific time limit (excluding the IRS12 month rule) within which to distribute, rollover, etc. after the company is no longer in business.