austin3515

PS VCP is not an option, as this organization is a non-profit that would prefer to spend its money helping people.

Touche... In my zeal to avoid this stupid requirement I did overlook the active participant issue. Anyone have any ideas?? How aggressive would it be to allocate the one-to-one as a match, or perhaps to everyone who has a balance? It just defeats any measure of rationale to do anything but. No one is getting more than $5 if I allocate to all eligibles. Plus the employer is being "punished" by having to fund the QNEC, and the employees noit getting their QNEC would in all likelihood never have received any money anyway.

Discretionary.

Yes, that's right, but since there is no "fee" it gets transferred to the forfeiture account. It doesn't seem to make sense that we put the $1.37 into somoene's account only pay $1.37 to FundCo as a "bonus". Rather, the money gets transferred to the forfeiture account where it will benefit the remaining participants.

I believe at the end of the day it will be easier.

The thought crossed my mind, but I just have a hard time believing that based on the relevant facts and circumstances it could be construed by a rationale individual as a cut-back. Just an opinion I know, and will stipulate that a literal interpreation probably supports your conclusion. The employer is going out of their way to provide this generous benefit, every pay-period, it just doesn't seem right to "stick-it-to-em" for being so kind to their employees. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Would it be acceptable to deposit the de minimis amounts for people who have no money in the plan to the forfeiture account, under the following logic: Were we to open an account for the participant to deposit $1.37 (no joke), it would immediately be forfeited anyway because the plan requires that the participant pay the distribution fee, and our disclosure of fees includes the fact that your account balance "taken" as a distribution fee. So full correction will be made to the PLAN, and we just skipped the step of opening the account before subsequently forfeiting it?

Anyone had a situatiuon where a client (a non-profit in this case) funds their "profit sharing" each pay-period in a 401(k) plan, but would like to change the rate mid-year? There are no allocation conditions. My concern is that everything in the document about allocating profit sharing uses annual language. I'm on the EGTRRA Corbel Prototype (I know, I know, we're getting the VS for PPA--so we can make amendments and then argue that they were indeed minor). If anyone has thoughts or can suggest a workaround I would appreciate it. For example, would a board resolution do it?

Do you get an excel download, or is it toitally interfaced with relius? I'm so frustrated with these recorkeepers and how they went about this, I'm thinking about just doing it myself in access. We're a producing TPA but have outsourced the daily val to bigger recordkeepers. This process was a struggle, so I'm not sure how I'll be able to get this info for enrollment kits, etc.

Where would one get the information necessary for preparing a 404a5 notice? We have Mornginstar for Rates of Return, and expense ratios, but where would we get things like returns for benchmarks, what the appropriate benchmark is, as well as a trading restrictions/fees? The recordkeepers must be getting the data from somewehre, but where? Is it obtainable on a smaller scale?

Consider the source She's just incorrect about the "once a year" piece of it. It clearly needs to be delivered once every 12 months. I think she read the regs correctly, but she must not have read the "amended regulations" set forth in the FAB that RPG pointed out.

It was extremely helpful. So the DOL essentially amended the regs through it's FAB. Classic federal government stuff. Reminds me of something from the IRS's play book of late. We'll get them next year. Presumably, the vendors will have incorporated this into their systems next year...

Somoene needs to tell me where in the regs this ANNUAL disclosure is required. I don't see it anywhere. I see lots and lots of required annual disclosures, and I see a requirement to disclose the actual charge (with an adequate description) on the quarterly statement. But that is all I see. A customer service rep at John Hancock is not authoritative. I note again that their template downloadable at this very minute does NOT request an dollar amount or a percntage next to recordkeeper.

What would those be? I just looked at the download the other day (Friday) and saw no reference to plan level fees in terms of dollars. What am I missing??

Different plans need only pass coverage. If you're passing coverae without aggregationg then yoiu run separate ACP tests for each plan and you can ignore the fact that the formulas are different. If you have one Plan, but different matches for different groups, now you have to test Benefits Rights and Features under (a)(4). Essentially you run a coverage test for each match formula and only you use the nondiscriminatory classification threshholds, instead of 70%. Of course, one Plan = 1 ACP Test, always (not counting otherwise excludable options).

The EOB has a section in here that says the following paragraph means something surprising: © Definition of matching rate. For purposes of this paragraph (a)(5)(ii), the matching rate for an employee generally is the matching contributions made for such employee divided by the employee's elective deferrals for the year. If the matching rate is not the same for all levels of elective deferrals for an employee, the employee's matching rate is determined assuming that an employee's elective deferrals are equal to 6 percent of compensation. The EOB is saying this means that if a plan disregards 401k over __% of pay for purposes of calculating the match, that the employee would be receviing a different rate of match for different levels of deferrals (one match rate for contributions below ___% of pay and then a 0% match for contributions above ___% of pay). The implication from the above is that you would basically always be assuming that an employee contributed 6% of pay (i.e., because most plans will disregard at least some 401(k). That outcome seems to be a little too ridiculous to be applied in practice. Anyone agree?

Can you clarify that you are referring to the participant initiated transaction charges and not the plan level/recordkeeping charges?

Edited big time. I realized I just copied and pasted the same thing from John Hancock's notice that somoene else did. The confusion above is that the template from JH does NOT include dollars gins in the list of types of services. I'm not sure why you have dollar signs above. As I said before the only dollar amounts disclosed in the annual notice (excluding investment related expenses, such as the expense ratio of the funds) is participant initated transactions. And the mention about how some are expressing the expenses incurred on $1,000, that is a required disclosure regarding the investment expense ratio of the fund. Executive Summary Admin Expense Disclosure (recordkeeping, legal TPA) Annually - disclose their existence, and how they would be allocated IF they are incurred at all Quarterly - disclose the actual dollar amounts of the expenses charged that quarter, and specifically identify what the charge is for (i.e., Recordkeeping: $175, or TPA Fees: $325) Investment Expense Disclosure Annually - the expense ratio and other things (lots of other things) Quarterly - None.

The only amounts we had to fill in were for participantinitiated transactions. I recently did a training in our office wherein to prepare Iwnet through the regs in detail. For plan level expenses, the only time amountcomes into play is in the quarterly statement. The annual notice only needs todisclose the possiblity of the plan paying certain types of expenses. HEre'sthe reg: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-...0.8&idno=29 (2) Administrative expenses. (i)(A) On or before the date onwhich a participant or beneficiary can first direct his or her investments andat least annually thereafter, an explanation of any fees and expenses forgeneral plan administrative services (e.g., legal, accounting, recordkeeping),which may be charged against the individual accounts of participants andbeneficiaries and are not reflected in the total annual operating expenses ofany designated investment alternative, as well as the basis on which such chargeswill be allocated (e.g., pro rata, per capita) to, or affect the balance of,each individual account. (B) If there is a change to the information described inparagraph ©(2)(i)(A) of this section, each participant and beneficiary mustbe furnished a description of such change at least 30 days, but not more than90 days, in advance of the effective date of such change, unless the inabilityto provide such advance notice is due to events that were unforeseeable orcircumstances beyond the control of the plan administrator, in which casenotice of such change must be furnished as soon as reasonably practicable. (ii) At least quarterly, a statement that includes: (A) The dollar amount of the fees and expenses described inparagraph ©(2)(i)(A) of this section that are actually charged (whether byliquidating shares or deducting dollars) during the preceding quarter to theparticipant's or beneficiary's account for such services; (B) A description of the services to which the chargesrelate (e.g., plan administration, including recordkeeping, legal, accountingservices); and © If applicable, an explanation that, in addition to thefees and expenses disclosed pursuant to paragraph ©(2)(ii) of this section,some of the plan's administrative expenses for the preceding quarter were paidfrom the total annual operating expenses of one or more of the plan'sdesignated investment alternatives (e.g., through revenue sharing arrangements,Rule 12b–1 fees, sub-transfer agent fees).

"Your Plan incurs certain administrative and operating expenses each year. These expenses are for the following services: • Recordkeeping fee $ • Auditor Fee $ • Third Party Administration Fee$ Our version of thje jhj notice did not have dollar amounts in this seciton, it just listed the types of expenses.

1) You're aware that the recordkeepers are preparing these (American Funds, Hancock, they all have one)? Or are you a recordkeeper just starting them now? 2) 3(38) advisors are extremely rare, at least in the small business world. I'm sure they're out there, but not that IO have seen. 3(38) means you assume complete responsiblity for the investmetns which most advisors don't like.

1) You're aware that the recordkeepers are preparing these (American Funds, Hancock, they all have one)? Or are you a recordkeeper just starting them now? 2) 3(38) advisors are extremely rare, at least in the small business world. I'm sure they're out there, but not that IO have seen. 3(38) means you assume complete responsiblity for the investmetns which most advisors don't like.

Yes, this was a mistake (in my opinion). The obvious issue is amendments for which American Fuinds was not kept in the loop. If it's not required, why include it???? I believe you only have to indicate that the plan will pay recordkeeping fees and those fees will be allocated pro rata in the annual notice. The new rule requires that the AMOUNT of the fees (not a formula) be included in the quarterly statements. That's different than the expense ratios of the funds, which would have to be disclosed on the [edit: Annual] notice.

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure how your comments answer the question. Would sick pay be considered a fringe benefit?

Another case written up by CCH. Again, a costly lawsuit that would have been AVOIDED had they never tried to use the QDIA... Where are the lawsuits about leaving money in the money market?? I implore you to share with me!! http://hr.cch.com/news/pension/080312a.asp