There is a 90 year old participant in a new plan of ours. He retired from the company 20 years ago and he cannot be located but has over $20k in his account and requires an RMD. Please let me know how you have dealt with these types of situations. Thank you.

This is a 401(a) defined contribution plan which is funded solely by the voluntary contributions of the public-sector workers in New Jersey. It started in 1963 with a single investment choice---a common stock portfolio. It has never expanded its investment menu. Are the Trustees in breach of their fiduciary duty?

What are people yusing to securely xfer files to clients? We send our clients 2, maybe 3 files a year. We currently use Sharefile, but 90% of the time the client writes back and says "I forgot the password." Why they won't click the forgot password link is beyond me, but it is what it is. sometimes they do and the password reset ends up in spam. Secure file transfer has become more than a small part of our existence.

I'm wondering how well Drop Box works in this kind of environment. We have a couple of payroll vendors sending us files each pay-period using Drop Box which is nice because there is no log in process. On the downside, we are constantly adding new recipients, and as such an email based solution is quite preferable.

Anyway, I'd be curious to know if there is a better mousetrap.

Plan offers a loan provison-

Payroll deduction set up for loan payments

Employee A takes a loan and the amortization is set up for bi weekly payments.

The employee is a commission only and for the month was not paid any commission therefore no loan payments were made to the plan.

The employee is not paid a base salary.

Although the plan require loan payments via payroll deduction, if the employee is commission only, then doesn't he have to issue a check to the plan each payroll period for the loan amount. Or issue one check for the outstanding loan payments prior to the end of the cure period?

thanks

Employee is on unpaid LOA, declined continuation coverage so there is a break in coverage. Normally upon return to active payroll status, benefits and 125 elections pick up where they left off.

During LOA, employee gets married. Wants to add spouse to coverage. Plan allows 60 days to make election changes, but employee does not return to active payroll and benefits status until 100 days after marriage.

Do you allow the employee to add spouse upon return from LOA even though it is 100 days after the qualifying marriage event? Or, do you REQUIRE the employee to notify you of the marriage within the normal 60 day window in order to be able to add spouse upon return?

We have a small 403(b) plan that covers non-resident aliens. An individual worked for the business, entered the plan, has an account balance in the plan, and has now left. The individual is resident of the Israel but not the USA and the owner does not believe she has a SS number. How can we pay this individual out if they have no SS#?

Any comments are appreciated.

I'm sure this has been asked before but I keep coming up with different answers. Clarity please. Have a not for profit plan. Firm has a B plan and a K plan. For 402(g) purposes, is it one limit and for 415 purposes, is the limit per plan?

Thank You.

Ppt. could have started collecting in 2005, but is now starting to collect an annuity in 2013. What interest rate is used to accumulate the missed payments to now - interest rate from 2005, or current rate? Or just a "reasonable" rate?

Non-owner participant is age 89 and retiring this week. He has money in 401(k) and IRAs.

1) After separation from service, must he start RMD from his 401(k) in 2013 or 2014?

2) Can he take some of his IRA RMD from the 401(k)?

Here is the scenario:

A client has a one participant overfunded DB plan, no 2013 contributions needed or made. He wants to terminate effective in 2013 and transfer excess assets to a DC plan escrow account, but the actual transfer won't happen until 2014.

The question is, can he release from escrow for 2013 (up to his DC annual addition)?

My presumption is yes, since aside from the lack of a deducation, it is little different from an accrued contribution. I would think that the termination resolution should specify the intent to accrue the transfer for 2013

The 5500 instructions for Schedule A indicate that individual policies of the same carrier may be grouped as a unit and filed under one Schedule A. My question is - does this refer to individual as in one person policies? or if an employer has different sets of employees under different plans with the same medical carrier, for instance, but with different id numbers, can those policies be grouped on one Schedule A, or better off listed separately?

PS wouldnt it be swell to have a 5500 message board section under Health & Welfare Plan separate from the other 5500 section?

Here is the scenario:

The plan sponsor would like to remove a fund from the plan line up due to poor performance (the advisor has suggested this). This fund holds no assets. We would like to remove it immediately without providing a mapping notice. The vendor will not remove the fund without waiting 30 days.

My understanding is that the notice is only required to obtain 404c protection. In this case, I don't care about 404c since there is no money in the fund being removed. I have told the vendor this and they say a notice is required (period) and they will not do anything until we provide a mapping notice.

Am I wrong in thinking that a notice is not a requirement? Any reason to provide a mapping notice in this scenario?

Thank you

I am working on a DB plan with a business owner and three staff people that was effective 1/1/2006. Although the business owner's accrual percentage was much higher than the the staff people's accrual percentage, it passed non-discrimination by being tested in combination with a profit sharing plan. Also, top-heavy minimums were satisfied through the profit sharing plan. The profit sharing plan was terminated 12/31/2010 and, therefore, the defined benefit plan was frozen 1/1/2011. Now the DB plan is overfunded. The business owner would like to unfreeze the plan to absorb the surplus, and to create an A + B benefit using a new, general tested, formula. All four people have been participants since 1/1/2006. It seems logical to me that I would need to provide a top-heavy minimum only for the 2013 accrual and not for all 6 years of top-heavy service (2006 - 2010 and 2013). Am I thinking about this correctly?

Any help would be appreciated!

If you aggregate a 401(k) and separate profit sharing plan to pass coverage, must you aggregate the Plans when testing for top heavy? Cites please.

Small 401k plan where one of the owners has an LLC with no employees (other than himself). We want to add the LLC as an adopting employer for the 2013 plan year to maximize the comp for the owner. It is a brand new LLC in 2013, and it would be a controlled group.

Plan is a safe harbor 401k plan. Anyone have a problem with doing this before year end. Let me rephrase because I know a lot of you would not do this. Is there anyone who would do this?

The potential bracket creep at distribution of NQDC participants deferring today and not already in the max tax bracket impacts these people for 7 to 9 years. Can take 7 to 9 years for the tax deferral benefits to outweigh the increased taxes - better off not deferring if don't plan to stay with the company / need the cash in the next 7 to 9 years.

With this being deferral election month - I'm curious approximately what percent of your client's NQDC participants are not in the maximum tax bracket?

Took over a non-electing church 403(b) plan, which originally was effective 10/01/2003. Plan document specifically states that eligible employee includes clergymen treated as self-employed individuals for purposes of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act. Plan document does not state that the church intended the plan to be a 403(b)(9). Plan was updated for EGTRRA, but not for PPA, HEART, and WRERA. It is my understanding final 403(b) regulations provide that self-employed ministers can only particiapte in a 403(b)(9) retirement income account. Therefore after 01/01/2009, self-employed clergy were not eligible to participate in the plan. An operational defect occurred and appropriate correction remedy would be to distribute excess salary deferral contributions back to the affected individuals with earnings, and matching contributions, attributable to the salary deferral dollars, would be forfeited to a suspense account to be used immediately as a credit towards future contributions.

What do you think?

Client owns 100% of two separate corps. Each has its own 401k. One (Plan B) is safe harbor match. The other (Plan A) is non safe harbor match. Plans have been separately administered for years and years. Client never told either tpa about the other until this year. So, testing on a control group basis was not performed until this year.

One plan (plan A) passes 410b ratio percentage test. The other (Plan B) does not. Plan B also fails the non discriminatory portion of the average benefit test. So, 410b coverage test is not passed.

Plan B is much smaller. Document is silent on correction method. However, it appears at first impression that the appropriate correction method for prior years would be to add Nhce employees from company A to Plan B so that Plan B can pass either the ratio or abp test.

That said, this will require many employees of A to be added to Plan B. And, many of the employees of A who would be added to Plan B are employees who have participated in Plan A and, received matching contributions from A.

Is this the appropriate correction method?

Is there another one?

If this is the appropriate correction method, what criteria should be used to select the A employees who would be retroactively included in the A plan. What level of benefit should they receive? Should there be a ' set off' for what they have already received from plan A

Any other comments are also welcome.

Thank you.

Client owns 100% of two separate corps. Each has its own 401k. One (Plan B) is safe harbor match. The other (Plan A) is non safe harbor match. Plans have been separately administered for years and years. Client never told either tpa about the other until this year. So, testing on a control group basis was not performed until this year.

One plan (plan A) passes 410b ratio percentage test. The other (Plan B) does not. Plan B also fails the non discriminatory portion of the average benefit test. So, 410b coverage test is not passed.

Plan B is much smaller. Document is silent on correction method. However, it appears at first impression that the appropriate correction method for prior years would be to add Nhce employees from company A to Plan B so that Plan B can pass either the ratio or abp test.

That said, this will require many employees of A to be added to Plan B. And, many of the employees of A who would be added to Plan B are employees who have participated in Plan A and, received matching contributions from A.

Is this the appropriate correction method?

Is there another one?

If this is the appropriate correction method, what criteria should be used to select the A employees who would be retroactively included in the A plan. What level of benefit should they receive? Should there be a ' set off' for what they have already received from plan A

Any other comments are also welcome.

Thank you.

Imagine a standard corporate 401(k) plan (not ESOP, etc.) with illiquid private company stock as an investment in the plan (<2% of plan assets). The company now believes that including the stock in the plan may not have been a good idea, due to additional fidicuary risk, accounting complications, limited liquidity, limited company growth, etc. They don't want to move the stock to another plan, but completely remove it from the existing plan somehow.

What are their options to remove the company stock, beyond terminating the plan? Can they have it valued by an independent third party (which they already do) and credit the participants with cash in the plan in exchange for buying back the stock? Or can they force the stock out some other way? I don't think they can force distribute the stock out to IRAs for each active participant, since there is no distributable event to make that legal.

Do they have any reasonable options to eventually get to a plan with no company stock in it? I haven't been able to locate any white papers or DOL guidance on this topic.