We have a plan that allows certain employees to purchase equity interests in our company. Is that an ERISA plan?

Would any of the following features make it an ERISA plan:

1. Right of first refusal.
2. Employee required to sell stock back to company upon separation from service.
3. Employee required to sell stock back to company upon death.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Small CPA firm with a safe harbor 401-k Plan where 1 of the CPA's and some of the staff terminated prior to end of year and formed a new firm. They will not receive Profit Sharing contributions since the plan requires employment on last day of year.

Can they start a new safe harbor plan in December to make up for the lost profit sharing and to maximize salary deferrals or does it have to be a January 1 date for safe harbor 401-k?

A small closely held Corp put in a SERP 10 yrs ago. It's a defined benefit type where the retirement benefit is a fixed amount. Now the Exec is retiring.

The CPA had additional Social Security tax withheld from the Execs salary every year since inception, but I'm not sure how he arrived at the amount. In research, I'm reading it should have been charged on a discount of what the ultimate benefit would be. Is that correct?

I have read that since this compensation is considered to have been earned during the Execs working years, the Exec can defer some of the retirement benefit into the co. 401k, if the 401k permits it. Is that correct?

Lastly, IRS Pub 957 suggests the retirement income is reported on a W-2 in boxes 1 and 11. and no Social Security or medicare tax is withheld. Is that correct?

Thanks so much for any input

Ray

Plan had a terminated employee as of 4/1/16 who needed (and did) take first RMD. Person has since been rehired by same company. Does employee have to continue taking RMDs where he has been rehired and is not an owner?

Plan wants to add auto enroll and escalate for 2017 so we set up a conference call to discuss.

Get this: Based on an auditors recommendation, the employer requires that ALL employees acknowledge and sign documentation each year for their 401k deferral percentage. So Joe comes meets with HR and HR says, "I see you are deferring 3%. Would you like to do that for next year?" "Yes, I would." "Great, sign here."

We don't see where auto enroll would come into play because everyone is making an affirmative election. Same thing with auto escalate; employee is effectively making an election to increase, decrease, or stay the same each year.

It appears that I would need to have the HR department repeal some of their procedures.

Anyone have any suggestions or run across this before?

If a VS DC plan has DL for EGTTRA and now is submitting for PPA.

What amendment must be stated on 5307 item g?

What amendments must be sent to the IRS with the 5307?

Thanks

Hello,

As a final exam I've been allowed to write a 15 page paper on any ERISA topic. The thing is I have no idea what to write about. I do have Lexus Nexus, which should make the process of writing the paper easier, but I have no idea what to write about! Possibly something easy to understand.

Best,

Hambbino

Has anyone matched the apr rates for 2016 vs 2017 at age 62 assuming a lump sum at 5.5% or at 5%?

Not being lazy, but I have not loaded the new tables yet.

A client of ours is a physician who is 100% owner of her private practice and sponsors a 401(k) plan. She and her husband bought 80% of a liquor store, not realizing that they might have to cover these employees under the plan. I don't see any way around this being a controlled group but I wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. They asked about transferring all ownership to the husband, but I told them the attribution rules applied. I'm sure they couldn't pass coverage by excluding them, as there are more employees at the store than the clinic. Is there any creative way to structure this to avoid a controlled group?

Does anyone know of a website to go to in order to check your CE status for ERPA? Someone I met mentioned checking to see that all her credits were properly reported.

Why would a TPA have the file Form 5500 instead of Form 5500-SF for a small, 8 participant plan, other than to charge a higher fee??

The investments are with a broker.

If an owner is limited due to 401-k testing on his EE contribution, can he make a deductible contribution to an IRA to at least get his total contribution to the IRA limit ($6,500 in his case) even though he is over the MAGI limit on making IRA contributions while having a qualified plan at work?

Plan says that benefits shall commence and be made in accordance with the RMD rules and that the Participant's entire interest will be distributed, or begin to be distributed, to the Participant no later than the Participant's "required beginning date". The 457(b) plan allows participants who have severed employment 60 days after severance to elect when to begin distributions and in what form. The plan document says if the participant does not make an election the benefit will commence on the participant's required beginning date (RBD).

The plan also says that benefits shall commence and be made in accordance with the RMD rules and that the participant's entire interest will be distributed, or begin to be distributed, to the participant no later than their RBD.

Does this mean the participant's entire account balance is taxable in the RBD year or that the participant will just be taxed on the RMD calculated amount each year?

The only HCE (age >50) in a top heavy plan is deferring $4K on his $100K comp = 4% and is considering not being SH this year. The ADP for the NHCEs is 0.5%.

If I run ADP, this will clearly fail, and all of the excess will be recharacterized as catch-up. Fine. But does that affect the TH minimum? It seems a bit chicken-and-egg to me: if you look at TH first, then he deferred 4% so he has to give 3% to the employees. But if you look at the ADP test first, the net "non-catch-up deferral" is only 1% or so, so the TH minimum is less.

What I'm finding online and in the EOB is not 100% clear (to me) if "recharacterized as catch-up" is the same thing for this purpose as "catch-up". Is the TH minimum really only going to be 1%?

Thanks.

Are people sending out distribution paperwork to participants with a notation on the paperwork regarding the fees? We've got "a lot" of plans now, and many recordkeepers negotiate the fee separately for each plan, so it's getting overwhelming to be able to do that.

What are other people doing?

in a combo plan, can the stability and or lookback periods be changed without any

testing implication under 401(a)(4)?? Could the stability and lookback periods be considered a brf?? any thoughts are appreciated...I am trying to eat up some surplus...

I understand that normally RMD needs to occur prior to Roth conversion.

Does this also apply to partial conversion? In other words, can RMD occur after partial Roth Conversion in the same year?

Will appreciate any clarity on this.

Thanks.

small SH 401(k) while transitioning to new owner failed to withhold 401(k) from participants checks in Sept. Using SCP should the sponsor fund a QNEC equal to 50% of what the deferral would have been as well as the accompanying SH match?

Please tell me if this is reasonable. A certain (well-known ) recordkeeper has told a client that based on their history of not failing ADP/ACP testing, the testing, which they pay an extra fee for, cannot be scheduled for completion within the first 2 1/2 months of the plan year end. If they do end up needing refunds, the Plan will be responsible for the risk and responsibilities of any failure.

Am I wrong for thinking this is totally unacceptable?

The proposed regulations have a section that talks about allowing a DB/DC combo plan to utilize the average NHCE match (but not over 3%) as being counted toward the minimum gateway.

When can that portion of these proposed regulations be relied upon?

The Proposed Applicability Date section says:

Except as described below, these regulations are proposed to be applicable to plan years beginning on or after the date of publication of the Treasury decision adopting these rules as final regulations in the Federal Register. Taxpayers are permitted to apply the provisions of these proposed regulations except for those described in section III of the Explanation of Provisions portion of the preamble for plan years beginning before this proposed applicability date, but not for plan years earlier than those beginning on or after January 1, 2014. Accordingly, the ability to rely on a provision of these proposed regulations for periods prior to the proposed applicability date for these regulations applies to the disregard of certain defined benefit replacement allocations in cross-testing; the exception from the minimum aggregate allocation gateway with respect to certain closed plans; the special testing rule for benefits, rights, and features with respect to certain closed plans; and the rule applying the ratio percentage test to a rate group in the case of a benefit formula that does not apply to a reasonable business classification. Taxpayers may rely on these provisions (that is, the provisions that the proposed regulations would permit a taxpayer to apply before the proposed applicability date for these regulations) in order to satisfy the nondiscrimination requirements of section 401(a)(4) for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2014, and until the corresponding final regulations become applicable.