An employer sponsors a stand alone HRA and one participant is enrolled in an HSA through her spouse's employer. The participant had previously only used the HRA to pay the health insurance premiums on the HDHP. Now, the spouse's employer will be paying these premiums and she wants to start using her HRA for other expenses such as prescriptions and non-preventative medical care. If she stops her contributions to the HSA, would she be able to begin using the HRA for any purpose immediately (it is a General Purpose HRA) or would she have to wait until the calendar year in which she had no contributions to the HSA? Also, if she still has balance in the HSA at the time she ceases her HSA contributions, does that have any impact on her availability to use the HRA for any purpose? Note that the HRA plan is run on an off calendar plan year.

Thank you!

This Plan has many participants, each of whom has their own FBO account at a brokerage firm. This plan is considered 404© and a Participant "T" was allowed to invest in shares of a partnership in 2010, using his own balance of course.

Many things have been squirrely with this transaction. For example, when purchased, the shares were titled in "T"s personal name and it took 4 years to get changed. Also, K-1's have just been obtained for all the years, and it took pulling teeth to obtain them. The icing on the crappy cake is that it has come to light that the Partnership owns a bank where T's wife was an officer.

May the Trustee of this Plan "revoke", "recall", or otherwise force the sale of this investment (partnership shares) at this point? I have a feeling there is a Party In Interest here, but I can't decide b/c the PII is not related to the Trustee/Fiduciary of the Plan; she is only related to T.

My client, the Trustee, is highly agitated and understands that he should have done more research on the front end, but what can he do NOW?

Thanks for any and all advice. I've been reading legal-eze until I'm almost nauseated, but I think I'm overlooking something really obvious. Thanks.

Let's say a participant dies and has no beneficiary form. According to our documents, the death benefits should go to the surviving spouse. However, let's say the surviving spouse chooses to distribute the funds into the deceased participant's trust instead of distributing the funds to himself. Is that allowed? Can a beneficiary elect to have the distribution made out to someone else other than himself, including a trust of the deceased participant?

We have a terminating DB Plan with several current Retirees. We have shopped extensively for an annuity provider that would cover all Retirees but are running into a "snag". The insurance companies are willing to quote on six Retirees but none will quote on the seventh. This Retiree was born in 1929 and they say he is just to old to quote with the size of our group as a whole.

Has anyone had this problem. We have corresponded with the PBGC but they just give us the names of a few more insurance companies to try and then mentioned that we could call our State Insurance Dept.

Any suggestions!

Dr. Smith sponsored a calendar-year plan for a few years. As of 07/01/14, Dr. Smith formed a new corp with Dr. Jones. Dr. Smith's document was amended to state that Smith & Jones, Inc. would assume sponsorship of the plan as of 07/01/14. Smith & Jones will file a 5500 for 2014.

Does Dr. Smith's old corp also have to file a final 5500 for a short plan year: 01/01/14 to 07/01/14?

Any cites are appreciated.

I use the term owner-only for the many marketing terms (individual 401k, solo 401k, etc...)

They are limited to owners and their spouses, with exclusions < one year of service or < 1000 hours.

This is my understanding.

These are essentially 401k plans subject to all the general rules. They are really marketing/administrative creations that can be offered with no or minimal administrative costs, because there is no anti-discrimination testing required and lower compliance costs.

The primary reason for this is that the owners and their spouses are all considered HCEs by virtue of > 5% ownership and attribution rules for the spouse. No non-HCEs no testing required.

So my question is this. Why does this not also extend to others under the attribution rules (children, parents, grandparents)? They would also be considered > 5% owners.

Not only did I jump the gun on Towel Day,

I forgot to wish everyone a happy Star Wars Day yesterday. Sorry.

So, a belated ...

"May the 4th" (be with you).

When using the Fire system, at what point in transmitting a Form 8955-SSA has the deadline been met? When the status is "Good, not released", is that considered a filing that met the due date? Or is it ten days later, when the file is released?

There are 6 requirements a 50-99 mid-size employer must meet in order to qualify for ACA transition relief, including not changing its plan year to begin at a later date after 2/9/14.

If the employer meets all 6 requirements penalty exposure is delayed a year until the end of the plan year that begins in 2015 (for example, a plan that renews 7/1/2015 would not be subject to penalty until 7/1/2016).

The question is what the consequences are if an employer meets the other 5 requirements but changes it's plan year in 2015 (say for example from a 7/1 renewal to a 10/1 renewal).

Some commentators contend that the transition relief is blown entirely and the employer is subject to penalty exposure retroactively as of 1/1/2015.

Others contend that the relief is still granted for 2015 but penalty exposure begins 1/1/2016 and only the remaining months in the 2015-2016 plan year are "lost".

Any opinions on this sticky issue welcome.

I can't get past page 1 of this topic:

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php/topic/27329-fas-87-discount-rates-and-moodys-rates/

I can get the latest information on page 6 by clicking on Reply to this topic, but the "page" buttons return me to page 1.

And the View New Content page doesn't think I've viewed it.

If it's only me, I can live with it.

I was recently asked for a copy of the 1971 TPF&C table. I have inherited a spreadsheet that contains something with that label, although I cannot verify.

Anyone able to verify the attached?

TPF&C 1971 MortalityTable.xlsx

NRA is 55, participant is 57 and still working. Plan allows in-service withdrawals at NRA.

Plan is a 401(k) and participant wants in-service of deferrals/QNEC/QMAC/Safe Harbor accounts.

Participant is insisting he can take the in-service, and I maintain he cannot because he is not 59 1/2. Who is correct?

Of course it is the owner and he is being adamant.

NRA is 55, working participant is age 57, plan provides for in-service withdrawal at NRA.

Participant wants to have his 401(k)/QNEC/QMAC/Safe harbor accounts distributed, and I say NO because he is under 59 1/2 and still employed. Does the participant win or do I win?

Of course this is the owner and he is being forceful.

Medical plan entry is first of month following 30 days after hire (so day 31 at earliest).

When does the employee have to turn in an election form by? 30 days after hire or some other date based on plan eligibility date?

Does your answer change if the plan entry is, say 60 days after hire?

I have a situation where a client wants to categorically exclude interns from participation in a 401(k) plan. Before posting this, I came across a thread between 2010 to 2011 on the subject and whether suh an exclusion could be viewed as a violation of Code Section 410(a) as imposing an indirect service requirement. I am not completely confident that this could completely avoid the issue but could an employer adapt language used to exclude independent contractors from the plan to interns? Namely, any individual who is classified by the employer as an intern and has entered into a written agreement with the employer providing that such individual is excluded from the employer's employee benefit plans? r

What is the name of the Trust? Am I crazy or would this be the name of the Plan (unless the Trust specifically includes a different name).

Are governmental DB plans subject to this section of ERISA?

A few months ago we took over a traditional DB plan that had been in place about 11 years. The plan will terminate by year end.

The plan sponsor sold most of the business and let go 4 of 5 employees in July 2014. All of those employees were long term and were paid substantial benefits from the plan back in December. Now it is just the business owner and one of the lower paid employees as participants. The owner has PVAB of $1,500,000, the employee about $10,000. The plan has assets of about $1,700,000 and they are planning on funding $300,000. Apparently, this was all planned out with the accountant a while ago. The owner has about $700,000 of room until he hits his 415 limit.

This seems like a potential discrimination issue to me but maybe not.

I believe they could allocate excess to remaining participants at plan termination up to the 415 limit. Also, I think it is acceptable to run a 401(a)4 test on the allocation using a current year basis rather than accrued-to-date. If the test can be done on a current year basis, I cannot see how the 4 that were terminated and paid out just a little over 4 months ago would factor into this.

Does anyone disagree?

Thanks.

Has Relius updated the standard report for the 5500 participant count so that active participants at the beginning of the plan year is broken out ( 5500-SF question 5d(1))? Is this coming on a future release?

An annuity policy has 1 owner named on the policy (the husband - he was named as the owner and the annuitant on the app) ) but the husband and the wife both sign the application as co-owners (there is only one place on the app for signatures - the wife was signing as co-owner - not as a consenting spouse).

The policy says that “the beneficiary of the co-owner spouses must be the surviving spouse”, and that “co-owners are deemed to be joint tenants with right of survivorship unless they indicate otherwise”.

The insurance company says that the name on the policy controls and wants to pay proceeds to the beneficiaries - the children of the husband and wife.

What rights does the wife have?