I was reviewing a benefit calculation for an individual and I had two questions:

1)the plan is a integrated excess plan. for covered comp the calculation showed the

covered comp for someone turning 62 in 2014..every covered comp excess formula I have seen used participant specific covered comp based on year of birth. 401(l) reg is quite difficult to read regarding single integration $ amounts so I am wondering if that is ok or someone doing the calc picked up the wrong amount.

2)the lump sum amount payable as of 2/1/15 uses the 2014 applicable table. I reviewed the IRS guide and it seems that you must use the mortality table relevant to the applicable stability period(i.e., 2015 table in this instance)

this is an attempt to produce a count for the 5500 SF for the active count at beginning of year and end of year

nothing fancy or pretty - the counters should be pretty obvious

5500 count.rpt

We recently merged with another business and our 401k plan was transferred to a new broker. Without my knowledge, my monies which were self directed to a specific fund in the old plan were mapped to a dissimilar fund when the blackout period ended. Apparently the old fund was removed from the plan on the advice of the new broker and with the approval of the new business investment committee. The new fund has underperformed my old fund by 25% since the blackout period started a month ago. The company claims I should have received written notice by mail. Do I have a legal claim?

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Withdrawn.

A Safe Harbor 401(k) plan currently has a 3 month eligibility with entry dates of October 1 and April 1 (off calendar plan). The employer would like to amend the entry date to monthly. Would this be acceptable using the rationale of the IRS at the 2012 ASPPA Conference? Or is that rationale only applicable if you have a classifcation of employee that was not previously covered?

Plan provides for a 3% non-safe harbor match. Participant must be employed on the last day of the quarter to be eligible for the allocation. Also, plan provides for a quarterly true-up. The question is how should the true-up be calculated with this design? Should the true-up only be calculated for the quarter in which a deferral is made or should the compensation for quarters where no match is contributed also be considered for a true-up? The individually designed document is silent.

Example: First quarter Joe has compensation of $40,000 and contributes $17,500. Match contribution is $1,200. Second quarter Joe has compensation of $40,000 and no deferral/match. Should a true-up be calculated on $80,000? What if he terminates during second quarter therefore making him ineligible for the match since he was not employed on the last day of the quarter? Is that a game changer?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I would appreciate help on this issue...including law/regulatory citations as appropriate. Some of our staff came from a meeting with a consulting group with a concept they indicated the consultant posited as able to be done. I suspect our staff did not correctly understand the concept and/or details if the consultant but this is what the staff indicated.

A DC plan with a 401(k) component (ours is a pension plan under ERISA 3(2), a DC plan under 3(34) of ERISA, a plan meant to be compliant with 404©, a profit-sharing plan with a 401(k) component) could be amended such that from the effective date of the amendment forward, the company match could be done in a notional manner (that is, not actually making the company match contribution to the participant accounts) and then funding of the company match would only occur (I assume funding with gains/losses of the notional amounts associated with the company match) until a distribution was taken. I gather the theory here is that this is a way to preserve cash (and defer cash contributions) of the plan sponsor.

I quickly searched for guidance/articles concerning when employer matching contributions should be made but other than following the plan document could not find other guidance (although it is probably out there).Of course, there is guidance about timeliness of putting elective deferrals in the participant accounts.

Presently our plan indicates the company match goes into the participant account as soon as administratively practicable following the eligible pay period.

I doubt our plan sponsor would embrace this concept even if it legal. However, I had never heard of such a concept and just wondered if the BenefitsLink retirement community had heard of such or had thoughts about whether such was legal.

Again, this is mostly for my education and to "educate" our staff.

Thanks.

This summer, we expect decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States on whether a State must provide same-sex marriage (if the State provides opposite-sex marriage) and whether a State must recognize a same-sex marriage that was made under another State's law.

These decisions matter greatly to someone who now must travel to be sure of making a same-sex marriage, and to someone who faces uncertainties about whether a court of a State in which he or she is domiciled or resides would recognize his or her marriage made under another State's law.

But for employee-benefits practitioners, I wonder if the news already happened. After the 2013 decision and administrative-law guidance, an administrator of an employee-benefit plan that has any provision that turns on the presence or absence of a spouse, has to be ready to apply the provision knowing that a same-sex marriage is at least possible. That's so even if the plan's sponsor and participants are so geographically limited that everyone resides in a State that neither provides nor recognizes same-sex marriage; an ERISA-governed plan usually recognizes a marriage that was valid under the law of the State in which it was made. (We recognize that church plans and governmental plans have quite different paths.)

Are there follow-on effects of 2015's same-sex marriage decisions that employee-benefits practitioners would need to do something about?

Have a husband and wife only 401(k) plan that allows for Rollovers, Roth deferrals, after-tax contributions and Roth conversions.

The wife has $100K in a traditional IRA. $50k is pre-tax and $50k is after-tax.

Can she roll over $100k from the IRA to the 401(k) plan and then convert just the $50k of the after-tax account to Roth?

Thanks.

We are in the midst of a standard termination. We want to offer a lump sum window to terminated vested participants. Can we offer this same lump sum window to active participants? Is that legally permissible? The more people that take lump sums, the more accurate our annuity pricing will be. Thus, we wanted to see about offering the lump sum window to actives.

Thanks for any thoughts.

I have a two person 401(k) in 2014. One is an HCE, the other NHCE. The Plan has used prior year testing for over 10 years.

In 2013, NHCE deferred 5% of $40,000 gross W-2 (Box 5) which is $2,000. Calculating the ADR using net comp (Box 1) would yield (2k/(40k-2k))= 5.26% ADP. The FT William doc is silent on how to calculate the ADR.

I'd like to calculate the deferral limit for the HCE to be 7.26% of gross (Box 5) compensation.

Any thoughts?

Plan A is a traditional DB plan with a Final Average Earnings (FAE) formula. It defines FAE as the average compensation for the 60 months of Employee's last 120 months before retirement that produce the highest average. Plan A counts post-severance payouts of accumulated vacation pay in FAE. Typically, it's paid in the month after the Employee terminates. E.g., if Employee terminates on 1/15/15, the vacation payout will be made around 2/15/15.

Is there a legal impediment to counting that February payout as part of January's comp (the last month for which Employee received a regular paycheck)? This would be more favorable to Employee's FAE because it would spike January's comp, rather than marooning it in February. I can't find any authority one way or the other.

Thanks for any replies.

A local union wants to establish/sponsor a medical plan for its members as an alternative to the high cost medical plan being offered by the multiemployer welfare plan that the union members are participating in. The plan will not be collectively bargained.

1. Is this a MEWA? And, if so, what exactly are the ramifications of that? (I know almost nothing about MEWAs!)

2. If they can sponsor the medical plan, will it be considered a group health plan that can be integrated with the HRA being offered under the multiemployer plan?

Any insights are appreciated!

I'm just looking for a recommendation on a national conference for non-attorney consultants working in the area of wrap plan documents, 5500's, notices, and other general compliance for welfare benefits topics.

Employer offers coverage to everyone regardless of hours worked. If you work 20hr/week, you get coverage. If you work 40hrs/week, you get coverage.

Because of this, the employer isn't applying a measurement period. But is a measurement period and a stability period applying in the background?

So, if an employee works in year one and goes on leave of absence in year two, is the employee entitled to an offer of coverage throughout the entire period of absence because an imputed stability period requires it?

Is there a measurement period/stability period operating in the background even though the employer isn't using this for plan eligibility purposes?

Employer doesn't want to give benefits on an extended leave of absence.

If a small non-profit starts a 403(b) and has no intention of making employer contributions is it subject to 5500 filing? I looked at 29CFR2510.3-2(f) and I am guessing they are exempt, but wanted to get a second opinion.

Prudential administers our physician office's 401(k) plan. However, we have some physicians who have “self-directed” accounts which are an off-shoot of the company 401(k) plan and those funds are held at another brokerage firm such as Charles Schwab. We have a physician who is retired and wants to roll over his 401(k) to an IRA, but Prudential is telling us that this physician must first move his money from his self-directed account back into Prudential in order for Prudential to process the roll-over. The physician is questioning whether that is a legal requirement as he prefers not to move his money from Charles Schwab back to Prudential because the physician will not be able to replicate his Bond portfolio with Prudential. The physician would prefer to move his money directly from Charles Schwab to his IRA.

Can anyone shed light on this? Is it possible to rollover directly from the self-directed 401(k) account to an IRA? Or must the self-directed account first be moved back to Prudential before the rollover can be processed?

Thanks.

In what might become a common situation for insurance reasons:

Medical practice (A) with two doctors and 5 regular employees has a SH 401(k) plan where the doctors maximize.

As of 2/1/15 the 5 regular employees of A will be on the payroll of an ASG (B) which has about 100 other arrangements like this with other medical practices. B maintains a 401(k)-only plan.

Questions:

1) Can practice A continue their plan if they include those 5 employees going on company B payroll?

2) Any other issues?

Thank you.

Does anyone have recent experience with this? In filing VCP will I need all of the amendments for each law change or can I just restate for EGTRRA and PPA?