austin3515

The difference from the single employer world is that the Employer of course decides who the trustee will be therefore has no one to blame but itself. Whatever the case may be, whenever I have clients that are negotiating with unions (either existing or negotiating for the first time) I always tell them at all costs to avoid the pension plan. It just seems like a 100 foot pit. Maybe even bottomless...

I agree, it is not required, but it is not a great plan desing (in my opinion anyway).

No, they want to do a match for 2014 but have not decided on the amount, etc. Earlier this year I did an Access Database to calc the match on every 2013 pay-date but it was cumbersome. Obviously if there is an annual deposit the document should be an annual calc. And snce the year is not over for 2014 I have more options than when I was working on 2013.

btw, one of the qslob requirements I believe is that each LOB must have 50 participants.

If they QSLOB's, yes they can do whatever they want. Mind you, must meet the nondiscriminatory classification test, but then it wouldn't be a QSLOB if you couldn't meet that. Even if not a QSLOB each plan can still do whatever it wants provided they meet all of the coverage requirements. So if the SH plan disproportionately benefits HCE's it probably would not work.

OK, back to this again... I'm leaning towards adding the 2nd match because I'm concluding that because no match existed there could not be a cut-back by switching to an annual calculation. Also, if the match is declared/funded as a formula (i.e., 25% of the first 4%) then switching from a pay-period match to an annual match would ONLY increase participants benefits (Tom Poje, many of the HCE's are deferring, so there's nothing nefarious going on here, but point taken). And of course a match is always a formula (even if you back into the formula based on the budget). So I just don't see the cutback for the switch. What I have concluded I cannot do in good faith, based on all of the same logic presented above, is added any allocation conditions. If 2nd match was already in the Plan I would have no qualms about it (others have already pointed out that this would be a horse of a different color). But since I am adding it today, I think it is a cutback to impose allocation conditions on participants who otherwise would have been entitled to the match. In other words, I should probably be comfortable amending the calculation period from each pay-period to an Annual Match without worrying about adding the 2nd match. But of course adding the 2nd annual match only provides me one more level of defense if anyone were to question it. But adding allocation conditions does not seem to work in my opinion. Do others agree? Tom, based on your caveat it sounds like you don't have a problem with switching to an annual calculation?

So what you are saying (Kevin) is if I merge the SH plan into the non-sh plan, that is an acceptable reason to have a short SH Plan Year? And I guess the next question is, what if I wanted to continue to provide the Safe Harbor Contribution for the legacy participants? Any way to do that? The entire merged plan will be SH in 2015. [And no, it is not an option to merge the non-SH plan into the SH Plan in this case - the non-SH Plan has many many more partiicpants and the far superior provider].

But if we are merging and not terminating?

What are the parameters for merging a SH Plan into a non-SH Plan? I can't find anything, even in the Outline Book... Can I continue the SH portion of the plan for just those participants merged in from the SH Plan? IT is a separate legal entity that was recently acquired. Also, does the merger itself "blow" the 410b6c grace period which just opens up a whole other can of worms? Or are my choices a) wait until the first day of a plan year, or b) discontinue the SH mid-year and therefore run ADP testing, etc.

I definitely concede to the ignorance allegations, but I've never heard good things about that process. Some of it of course was the employer's fault because they did not know about "withdrawal liabilities" on the way in - they only found out about when they want to leave. So I suppose what I actually say to them is "watch out for withdrawal liability on these under-funded plans." I think that is actually pretty close to good advice for a lay-person like me. Would you agree? And also, your phrasing here I think is indicative that you also see a problem: i.e., many of them are. Buyer beware!

I suppose the issue ends up being if your particular employer is not a trustee, but I admittedly have zero experience in multiemployer plans... It just sounds awful. I advise anyone who will listen to never join because of these withdrawal liabilities...

Or something very much like it... http://www.plansponsor.com/Court_Tosses_Multiemployer_Plan_Withdrawal_Liability_Challenge.aspx

Apparently he can make this problem go away for just "1 million dollars" And of course, that's not really a lot of money these days...

I have not seen a letter, but if you're just talking about the "normal plans" I would not worry too much. I worry about the plan's with real estate because as far as I know it is very difficult to get a fidelity bond covering real estate (at least that's what I think I have heard). That's been our experience anyway. But I think the biggest gotcha here is going to be the non-custodian record-keepers. I think a lot of TPA's (not those who frequent these boards of course!) miss that the SAR must disclose the custodian because the recordkeeper is not a "regulated financial institution." (i.e., Schwab is custodian but someone other entity is recordkeeper). That's assuming whoever is doing the review appreciates that finer distinction .

http://asppa-net.org/News/Browse-Topics/Sales-Marketing/Article/ArticleID/3090 I know, I should have posted in 5500's section but I thought this was "big news" and this forum gets the most traffic.

Have a plan w/ no HCE's so coverage is not an issue. Can I exclude from the Plan anyone who was hired after 10/1/2014? Or could that be considered a violation of 410(a)? I know DB plans do it all the time so I assume it is ok, but just thought I should double check with y'all.

I meant for the IRA's, but I do know that they will do the skip tracing stuff too, but have not tried it as of yet. Others have mentioned Intellus so I need to check them out too...

We use PenChecks, and my understanding is that PenChecks will due their own search for them after they receive the money. We use LocatePlus which was cheap (important because we wanted to avoid having to bill clients to do this). They're like $25 a month for 12 searches or something. We've had decent success.

I thought of that but it seems like too many false positives, especially if you have no means of recognizing their photo... I can't understand why they don't have something where you upload a spreadsheet of names and socials, and the IRS sends to the address of record a letter saying hey "Austin Powers and Company Inc. has money held in your account so you should call them." They could charge $10 a pop and even make a little money. It seems obvious to me that the IRS has the best database bar none for this task. Why are they not using the best tool to solve a huge industry (and national) problem?

http://www.employeebenefitslawreport.com/2014/08/dol-updates-missing-participant-guidance/ Does anyone know which "free websites" in particular the DOL has in mind?

I agree with every word you wrote SearchLight. Thank you!

MoJo, I think the more we discuss the more it comes out that we are almost in 100% agreement. I think the only difference in our thought process is what it says about employers (and their administrators) if these "very old" documents cannot be located. That and how much we belabor the old document issue when we take over a new plan. Perhaps it would be considered a better level of service to go back 12 years for documents, but I think too it might be perceived as creating a big project to mitigate a remote risk. I just don't think it would be a good way to start a new relationship, and frankly I just don't think it's my responsibility to make sure they have copies of documents from all their past providers. And by the way, "yes" I do have the documents that we based our initial restatement on. But I will tell you this, you have gotten me thinking, as has Fiduciary Guidance. We do a quarterly newsletter and we have a standard year-end letter. I do think I will be adding something to both to the effect of "the IRS has gone off the deep end, better make sure you have your documents in order since the beginning of time." So it would be the cousin of the commentary regarding "better make sure you get your deposits in yesterday." We have that latter commentary in about 5 different letters and notices.

Are you suggesting that I go willy nilly about the office shredding old plan docs and telling clients "go ahead toss the document, who needs it!"? Is it possible that perhaps I'm just being realistic? You can call me snide if you choose (and perhaps I am being snide with you!) but to tell me I don't take my job seriously is actually one of the more offensive things you could say. I have every document I ever wrote, with a signed copy for the last 8 years (which is when I started). Either that or I've harassed the client for the signed docs. We are diligent. But there are things beyond our control. But I think you alluded to an important point which is that you don't work with a "regular" client base. For better or for worse you don't see what it's like in the real world with real people with the very real problem of keeping track of myriad documents from all sorts of different companies (and that's JUST employee benefits, forget about tax returns and the like), all of which should be kept "forever". [note: I'm talking about small companies here, less than 100 employees, generally - the big boys are more in line with the "nothing but perfection standard, as well they should be].

"Granted, the GUST restatement would have been adopted over 10 years ago, but until a much more recent date, it WAS the current document" Yes, that's the counter argument! But of course clearly every year that goes by more and more documents get "locationally challenged" You won't believe this. just got an mail from another CPA, where one of their clients is being audited. They want he original signed plan documents from, you guessed it, 2002. Mind you, the audit has not even started and they are looking for it. Beware, it seems we have an epidemic. There must have been some retreat recently where all the auditors came together with a plan for big Christmas Bonuses. I can tell you that as a general rule on audits I have not as of yet been required to provide such ancient documents (at least on a regular basis). This seems to be a new trend...

"Being snide does not become you, Austin." IT doesn't become me, but it suits my on-line persona just fine . And I think you'd be shocked at how many of your clients cannot find a document more than 10 years old. After all 10 years ago, they were in a different office, with a different CFO and using a different provider (all made up facts but very very realistic). Would it surprise you to know that I have clients who have forgotten to fund their 401(k) contributions for a pay-period?