austin3515

This is where I ended up. I made the merger effective as of close of business on 12/31/14. I restated the Plan effective 1/1/2015. I think that takes care of everything. "The merger of the plans and the transfer and assignment of account balances in the A Plan to the B Plan shall take place as of the close of business on December 31, 2014 after all transactions effective as of that date have been processed in accordance with the terms of the Plan to which they relate."

Here's my problem - that increases to 3 the number of filings required each year. Our clients are going to go mental. And unlike the SSA which was a mere transmittal of objective data, this one I will need to have the client actually sign and return to me before I transmit (on the SSA, I simply trust the client to sign the hard-copy). I would not be comfortable transmitting data for whether or not the client has executed the plan amendments which I have sent to him or her. Oh, and how about a mulptiple employer plan? That should fit in beautifully for this filing.

From Janice Wegesin's web-site. Not very encouraging. http://www.form5500help.com/

Does anyone know who would need to file the 5500-SUP? Ascensus had something in today's BL email. Is it only for special circumstances? Why would it not be incorporated into the existing 5500? http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f5500sup--dft.pdf

I can't tell you how many times I've asked a question and someone points to a post I started months or even years ago Perhaps the Gray Book will provide a reasonable response? Q&A 1997-38 Other DB Issues: Mergers and Short Plan Years A plan sponsor intends to merge two calendar year plans. To avoid filing a short plan year Form 5500 for either plan, should the merger date be December 31 or January 1? RESPONSE The merger documents should include language describing the transaction as taking effect at a time such as "as of the beginning of the plan year" or "as of the end of the plan year." As long as the intention is clear, the IRS should not question a date of either December 31 or January 1 on Form 5500 or on Form 5310-A. This is very interesting - I can have my merger document specify that the merger is effective "as of the end of the day, December 31, 2014" and my newly restated merged safe harbor plan document effective January 1, 2015. It seems to solve every one of my problems. Does everyone agree? I guess it actually does go to the "midnight merger" idea.

They do. I'm surprised there isn't some sort of published guidance on any of this stuff. I see your point and I'm probably making too big a deal of it. For example, I could have the merger effective 12/31/2014 @ 11:59 PM. Is there any guidance saying that is ok to do? So what if there was a pay-date on 12/31/2014 or someone gets a bonus?

Submitted an incident to them but wanted to check with the experts too

I'm not crazy about either and I agree with you but have a client who wants this - can you point to anything?

The corbel VS 401k document includes an option to subject individuals who have made affirmative elections to auto increases. Let's say a participant affirmatively elects 0% of pay, or checks a box saying they choose not to participate (effectively the same thing). Does anyone have a problem with subjecting that participant to the auto increases applicable to employees who have made an affirmative election?

Because both of the Plans are audited I wanted to make sure that even though I am merging as of 1/1/2015 the client will not need to engage the CPA for a 2015 audit for the one day. I do not want to merge as of 12/31/2014 because one is SH and the other is not and that just seems to complicated. Note that we are currently within a 410b6c grace period. I know I have heard that there has been informal guidance on this supporting using 2014 as the final 5500 for the non-surviving plan despite the 1/1/15 effective date. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Are you asking what the penalties are for taking a deduction in 2013 even though the deposit is not going to be made within the time frame permitted? That would be a serious issue, since he would knowingly be taking a deduction he was not eligible for. I kinda think maybe that is what you were asking.

ok, I'm sure is someone really wanted to know they could find me, there are certainly enough people who know who I am. But certainly far fewer than would otherwise. And I don't think I've said anything that was egregious anyway.

Hilarious... Still a good question...

If I told you that it would reveal my secret identity. Let's just say it is not the Wall Street Journal... I've often considered posting under my other real name but I'm more comfortable asking certain questions and providing certain responses with anonymity. I've noticed that even my posts from 10 years ago are still out there...

Bird, I think you nailed it... I just wrote an article on this and I'm kicking myself for not including a special note on this. I think it's too bad their language has not caught up with this to make that more clear.

When a parent dies, and is divorced, and the minor child is the beneficiary, is there something we should be requesting to "prove" that the surviving parent should receive the money on their behalf? Suffice it to say that the deceased's family is "concerned" that perhaps the surving parent will not use the money in the best interests of the child. So we want to make sure we dot i's and cross t's. I have heard the term Financial Guardian before - is that something we should be requesting even with respect to the parent?

Does anyone know if fidelity bonds with inflation guard have any caveats, exclusions, etc. regarding non-qualifying plan assets? So a plan has $1,000,000 but has $300,000 of real estate. Will the bond be $300,000 or still just $100,000? I am afraid that plans using inflation guard might be lulled into a false conclusion that they are all set when in fact they are not. Probably a less interesting example is a plan with $1,000,000 and $600,000 of real estate. I think that is more clear that the bond covers just $500,000 as most of these bonds indicate a "not to exceed $500,000" parameter. Anyway I wasn't sure if anyone had already looked into this as it seems to be a potential hole in the bonding requirement for the small plan audit waiver.

ok then they are idiots. I have a bigger problem than you because I generally make them effective 1/1!

Aha... Good point! I was jumping on the "they must be idiots" bandwagon but perhaps they are onto something...

https://www.jpmorgan.com/cm/BlobServer/Auto_Contributions_Comparison_Chart_JPMorgan.pdf?blobkey=id&blobwhere=1158591832360&blobheader=application/pdf&blobheadername1=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=private&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs Found this little gem for ya...

That's what I figured... I have to imagine this happens often enough.

Plan established in 2012 had no eligible ee's except the owner and so was an "EZ filer" but exempt because plan had less than $250K. Now in 2013 there are eligibles. What do I do? Will I get a letter? Is there a way to avoid it?

http://www.aicpa.org/Publications/TaxAdviser/2014/January/Pages/naegele_jan2014.aspx THANKS!!

Is that available on the intnernet?

If only there were a nice chart explaining this all...