I had a nice, relatively easy plan on a mutual fund product. But then the financial advisor had... certain employees (which is its own issue, of course, but not the problem I'm dealing with today) transfer chunks of their profit sharing balances into individual annuities in the name of the plan so they are still plan assets.

These annuities are providing quarterly statements to the participants that are in them, just like the mutual fund platform was. My question is: do I need to provide some kind of "total statement" for them on a quarterly (I don't think so) or annual (maybe) basis? All the participants who made the switch so far are fully vested by virtue of their Years of Service; I think I would be more inclined to give a combined statement if someone wasn't fully vested.

Thanks...

Can a X-tested plan be designed to provide a last day rule and/or 1000 hour requirement for allocation for some participants and not others? Thanks.

A company has fewer than 50 employees and has been paying insurance premiums for both employees and dependents. Can they stop paying for the insurance and only offer affordable coverage:

Can they pay premiums for only select employees, i.e. HCE's?

Background:

The Plan Document allows for a discretionary employer match and discretionary non-elective contribution, both on a per pay period basis, and it also says that a true-up will be done at year-end

Questions:

1. Would the document need to be amended if the company decides to suspend the employer contributions mid-year? I seems like that falls under the discretionary piece.

2. If the plan dues a true-up at year-end and suspends the employer contributions mid-year, should the document address how the true-up would then be handled, or is this an administrative issue?

3. How would the true-up be calculated if the contributions were stopped mid-year.

Thanks for any information you may be able to offer!

I don't harbor much hope but I'll ask anyway: is there any way that a non-US citizen working in the US under an H2B temporary agricultural worker visa can be treated as an excludable non-resident alien with no US source income?

If a DB Plan pays a PBGC premium out of plan assets to the PBGC, does the PBGC need ot be listed on the Schedule C?

Paper is Not Dead (I guess I should have seen the punch line coming...)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/V gOZDWQj3Q?rel=0

If a participant made a distribution request from their 401(k) account on 12/27/12 but the distribution was not processed and paid until 1/3/13 is it correct to record it as a payable on the plan's financial statements or should distributions only be recorded when paid?

I have a situation where the participant's beneficiary is his ex-spouse whom he still lived with at the time of death.

I would assume that she is treated as a non-spousal beneficiary for purposes of the distribution or rollover and required notifications?

Also if rollling over she must roll to a non-spousal IRA as opposed to being able to roll to her own IRA as she would if she was still spouse?

thanks in advance.

Our client is a government contractor and several of the employees are part of a contract under the Service Contract Act. Their contract specifically does not allow them to receive benefits. I know that I need to make sure our plan document excludes them and that all testing is passed. For one year, however, our document was not correct to exclude these people. Does anyone know if DOL and/or IRS will accept that the contract did not allow for deferrals and then we can correct this under SCP?

I have an ESOP where the families that used to own the stock sold 100% of it to the ESOP.

During the sale they took back enough warrants that if they exercised them they all would be >5% owners.

I have looked at the HCE definistion and as long as the warrants don't have voting rights it would seem like these people are not HCEs by ownership.

I am having a brain breakdown. Do people agree or disagree?

Comp is based on plan year and with respect to any participant means: "Wages, tips and other compensation on Form W-2". I gather this means Box 1 on W-2, yes?

However, the only adjustment to compensation is "excluding comp paid during the determination period while not a participant in any component of the plan for which the definition applies" Therefore, mid plan year entry would exclude compensation earned prior to that entry date.

Since "including Salary deferrals" was not checked as an adjustment then comp for plan purposes would be W-2 Box 1 less deferrals, correct? i.e. $10K Box 1 W-2 less $2K deferral would be $8K for plan purposes? Therefore potentially lowering match funding for participants who did not exceed 401(a)17.

Calendar Year Plan

During 2012 Plan Year, a Plan overpaid a QDRO

Overpayment, plus associates investment gain returned to the Plan during the 2013 Plan Year

1. Should the overpayment be reported as a Prohibited Transaction on the Schedule H? My feeling is "no" - but the CPA Auditor "thinks" it should.

2. Should the overpayment be classified as a receivable on the Schedule H?

Many thanks!

Plan Document (Adoption Agreement) currently does not permit automatic rollovers of balances between $1,000 and $5,000.

Is there an exception in the event of a plan termination that says the funds may be automatically rolled to an IRA in the absense of a participant election? Or does the document need to provide for auto rollovers? (The participants will have been given a distribution packet and the option to elect the form of distribution.).

Thanks!!

LEt's say you have a client charging prime + 0 on its loans. Do you tell them:

a) There is little or no risk, the IRS is just puffing smoke

b) There is moderate risk, because hey, the auditors want to find something; or

c) I strongly recommend you increase your loan rate to prime +1 (the most common rate out there) because of the "recent" IRS comments endorsing Prime + 2.

Specifically, I'm looking for practical advice on what others are telling clients to help them avoid audit troubles. I agree with all of the arguments I've read that Prime is just as good as any other since there is essentially no risk.

If an employer is using the 5304 SIMPLE, can they require particpants to only have one investment selection at any given time for their ongoing contributions? I think they should be able to but still allow an employee to change investments but can not split contributions to go to 2 or more providers

For purposes of 4975(e)(6) - has anyone seen a situation in which there was a look-back time period during which a former fiduciary of a profit sharing plan (who is now the ex-wife of the remaining fiduciary/sole participant) would still be considered a disqualified person? I would like to propose a sale of land from the Plan to the ex-wife, but don't want to get tripped up on any PT issues!

I have a plan where I may want to restructure into two components, each with 1 HCE participant, in order to pass nondiscrimination for the profit sharing allocation. Each component separately passes coverage. I would like to use cross testing in Component 1, and Component 2 passes with a uniform allocation (each participant gets a 5% allocation). If I use the average benefits test to pass Component 1, must I consider the match and deferral allocations of the participants in Component 2 when I compute the average benefit percentage ratio?

Employer is setting up a new plan. Without question, she hopes the day will come when she can make "substantial and recurring contributions." The motivation for now is to allow herself and her employees to have a place to park rollovers from their old jobs.

Practically speaking, how is the substantial and recurring contributions rule enforced? If a plan is opened and no contributions aside from rollovers are ever made, is that a problem? If they add a 401k feature in year 3 or 4 is that a problem?

Are people doing the 0% money purchase plans in these situations?

Finally, Corbel's 401(k) plan has a "frozen plan" option with NO qualifications (i.e., no mention of the substantial and recurring issue). What is the purpose of that, as it seems to contradict this rule?

Edit:

Another Finally - is it a disqualification issue, or a partial termination issue? I see the substantial and recurring terminology crop up in the partial term rules.

Obamacare added a new section 18B to the FLSA, requiring employers that are subject to the FLSA to send out a notice of the Health Insurance Marketplaces to all employees. This notice is due on October 1.

The Department of Labor recently issued an FAQ stating that there is no fine or penalty under the law for failing to provide the notice.

Can anyone provide any insight as to whether there any other employment-type laws or any litigation risk that an employer should be concerned about if it does not send out the notices or only sends the notices to some employees?