I had a solo plan (at first Keough and later on 401k) that ws started in 1981. Only filing was a 5500-R in 1985. Having a hard time finding out what the requirements were at that time. IRS has old forms but not old instructions. Even Google Books only goes back to 1987, although the description says it goes back to 1985, it lies.

Plan was terminated in 1997, so I am planning on filing a 5500-EZ final for that year under the current no-penalty late-filer program for solos, which will be open until June 2015.

Was the 5500-R all I needed at that time? Assets in plan were always small, well under $100,000 in 1990, but I don't know what the cutoff was prior to 1990.

Would be happy to read the instructions myself, but where to find them?

ABC Co. and DEF Co. constitute a controlled group. ABC sponsors a safe harbor 401(k) plan covering its employees. DEF sponsors a traditional 401(k) plan covering its employees who are not HCEs (i.e., HCEs are excluded from active participation in the DEF plan).

Since DEF's plan is deemed to satisfy 410(b) (by excluding all HCEs from active participation), so long as ABC's plan satisfies 410(b), all is good, right?

Thanks for any comments/thoughts!

Thanks

With prior year testing am I permitted to carve out NHCE's who do not meet statutory eligibility - I'm thinking that I don't but wanted to see what other think... Thanks

The payroll system we use is a monster Payroll accidently sent a 401(k) negative contribution for someone that has never even been a participant in the plan. In our group we consider that an invalid record and it is deleted from the 401(k) records. However, I am considered about a negative showing up on their W2. If they were to send a positive amount to correct it for that person, then that person would have funds sent over to the 401(k) plan. Anhyone ever seen this before?

If an employee initially elected to pay a loan over five years from their 401(k), goes on LTD (considered active under our plans) but did not pay anything for his loans during that time, would he owe everything from while he was out or could the length of the loan be extended for the period while on leave? Yikes (Also notice the employee didnt pay premiums on LTD for medical either, guessing the employee has to pay all that as well.......was out a long long time).

I understand that only income for partners of certain type of entities is eligible compensation for 401(k) purposes.

Can someone tell me if I can use the K-1 earned income for the partners in a S Corp, C Corp, or LLC?

Any guidance is greatly appreciated

Alex.

Dental practice with two dentist partnership and 401(k) safe harbor profit sharing plan. One dentist retires as of 09/30/2014 & receives a buyout from the practice. Plan will be terminating; I believe as of 12/31/2014. Younger Doc has renamed the practice effective 10/01/2014. Some staff members do make 401(k) contributions. Do those have to stop because the original partnership has ceased to exist? The staff people have remained on the same payroll with an entity name change.

I have a client who has a combined PS/DB plan. There are terminated participants who are getting a Gateway contribution. The client wants to pre-pay the Gateway contribution on the PS side using the forfeiture account every time someone terminates vs. waiting until the end of the plan year. Is this allowable? So for instance, someone terminates on 4/11/15. He wants to give them their 5% and then process their termination. Thank you-

Plan has a last day requirement to receive the employer allocation. They are going to experience a lay off. They want to remove the last day provision for those impacted by the lay off. Is this possible? Any testing concerns.

I have a sole proprietor profit sharing plan, with the husband and wife as the only participants. Accordingly, the plan is not subject to ERISA and it qualifies to file From 5500 SF

The following year the wife dies and leaves her plan benefit to her three children.

The plan now still has only a single participant but it is also paying out the wife's benefits to the children over five years.

This type of situation must be very common, obviously because sooner or later the proprietor may die and only beneficiaries will be left in the plan. Also, almost every plan participant designates a beneficiary for their benefit during their life time, and some day the plan will likely provide a benefit to that beneficiary.

Page 7 of the instructions to From 5500 SF provides one of the requirements to file the form is: " 2) The plan does not provide benefits for anyone except you, or your and your spouse..."

My question is: In a sole proprietor plan, where the owner as the only participant, and the plan is also paying out benefits to a nonparticipant beneficiary, is the plan still not subject to ERISA and can it continue to file Form 5500 SF?

It seems to me, that by the participant simply designating a beneficiary during her life time, the plan is providing a benefit to the beneficiary . However, I would not expect this designation during the participant's life time to preclude the filing of Form 5500 SF. So, if the participant dies and is replaced by three beneficiaries who had for a number of years already been entered in the plan, but now will actually receive benefits, the plan should be able to continue to file Form 5500 SF because beneficiaries are not participants.

What do you think? Does anyone have an authority for this issue?

Client's partners are mistakenly participating in cafeteria plan (. What is best solution to wrongful participation?

A. Stop accepting partner contributions asap but let them utilize benefits until they hit their $2500 limits.

B. Stop accepting partner contributions asap and return any unused funds.

C. Let them participate through the plan year end and do not let partners enroll in the future?

D. Terminate plan and start over with a new plan which will be administered so that partners can not participate

E. Some combination of the above or, an alternative solution

Any other issues or points?

Thanks.

Is it possible to add mid-year? What if we amend today have it effective 3/1/2015?

An employer is going to offer an HDHP (in addition to their “regular” health insurance plan) to employees, and will add an HSA to their cafeteria plan at the beginning of the year. (The health FSA will be limited for those participants with an HSA.) Can the employer contribute $100 per month to ONLY the employees’ HSAs that elect the single coverage HDHP, and pass nondiscrimination testing?

It is my understanding it should pass the eligibility and availability tests. Further, in order to test for BOTH the utilization and the 25% key concentration test, BOTH employee pre-tax salary reduction contributions and the employer contributions will be added together and tested for both of these tests? And further, there is no nondiscrimination test that requires the employer contribution to just be considered alone?

Dumb question - suppose you have a leveraged ESOP that you know will fail 409(p) testing in first and probably many subsequent years.

You can exclude these people. Is there any reason that the exclusion must be irrevocable? In other words, most plans now seem to have standard "non-allocation year" language to prevent a prohibited allocation. But is there any reason, from a plan design standpoint, why they can't just be put in an excluded class, and amend the exclusion out of the plan once they reach the point where 409(p) testing can pass?

Or, can they NOT be excluded, and just rely on the non-allocation year language so that they in effect just don't receive an allocation for as long as a non-allocation year would come into play?

My wife and I are independent consultant and both own 50% each of our LLC. What would be the best retirement plan to setup for the LLC to contribute to a plan and use that as a tax deductible business expense to the LLC before profit.

The LLC is taxed as a Corp. and we do not issue any W2's to anyone, We issue 1099's for contractors to pay their taxes via their individual 1040's, if there is any profit as a result of the LLC we will issue W2s to ourselves, but its very little. [edited for better clarity]

The LLC make about $10,000 - $15,000 per year.

Would like to have the flexibility to contribute when times are good and not when there is no profit.

can an employer make a 3% nonelective contribution instead of the 2%? I have a client who had a great year and they want to contribute 3% instead of just 2%.

THanks!

In the olden days, I used to draft documents with a Normal Retirement age of 65 and 5 (or 10) and Early Retirement age of 55 and 10.

During EGTRRA restatement days, I began moving Normal Retirement Ages down to 59 1/2 for a lot of DC Plans. Now I'm starting PPA restatements and am wondering why I'm defining an Early Retirement Age as a different (lower) age. The document appears to only grant "early retirees" some accelerated vesting.

I'm leaning towards a 59.5 retirement age as both Normal and Early - no distinction.

No real question here. Just looking for some feedback.

A small S.H. 401(k) is considering adding an after tax option in order to go above and beyond the 415 limits. There recently has been a lot of press regarding the ability to convert these contributions to ROTH IRA down the road. What are your thoughts on adding such an option to a plan?

A defined benefit pension plan is currently frozen. The plan covers the owner & his wife and two nhces. Even though the plan has been frozen for a few years the sponsor is still making contributions as allowed under 404.

The two nhces are eventually paid out their present value of accrued benefits. At the time of their distribution the plan had excess assets. In a subsequent year (i.e the 2 nhces had been paid out in some prior year) the plan, which is still over funded, is terminated and the excess assets are allocated to the owner & his wife and distributed. The amounts distributed are under the 415 limits.

Is there an issue with 401(a)(4) in particular or any other qualification issue?