austin3515

Let's say there are NO participants required to be reported for 2009. Does anyone have a problem with me voluntarily reporting my 2010 people in the 2009 plan year in this situaiton? I have good reasons for doing it this way, so please don't say "why don't you just report them in 2010?"

The key is a plan funded exclusively by IRA's (so same goes for SIMPLE IRA's)

I'm not certain the trustee needs to be in the US. I know that once upon a time I found that you do not need to be a US citizen to be a trustee. The trust just needs to be organized/domiciled in the US courts can have jurisdiction. But don't quote me on anything

So it sounds you look agree that my two distributions should both be exempt from the 10% penalty? I must have read the same articles as you

I agree with you 100% regarding when the doc does not require. Point of clarification though, my document did require it.

I had a plan that simply required spousal consent to any distribution. I assume it was legal because they had a favorable opinion letter. But it was pretty simple, it didn't involve QJSA or anything. Document just said "spousal consent shall be required before approving any distribtuion" or something like that.

What if the document did not mandate lump-sums, but allowed partial distributions? You're saying a QDRO mandates single lump-sum distributions?

So you're suggesting that there might be a time limit? Say the person waits 4 years to close their account. Are you saying someone might argue that the distribution was not pursuant to a QDRO?

Somoene gets a QDRO of $100K. If they take $30K today, and $70K next year, are both payments exempt from the 10% penalty? Assume they do not rollover (of course). Someone is suggesting that the second distriubion is not exempt, but the code plainly says distibutions pursuant to a QDRO are exempt.

"f the 2011 Form 5500 is not available before the plan or DFE filing use the 2010 Form 5500 and enter the 2011 fiscal year beginning and ending dates on the line provided at the top of the form." From Page 4, top right column of the 5500 instructions for 2010. It's not based on the deadline, it's when the filing is actually made.

Step 1: Run the ADP test without OE's. If the testing passes you are fine. There is no requirement to RUN and ADP test. The requirement is to PASS the ADP test. If the test is passed, the fact that you didn't run it before 12/31/09 is moot. Step 2: If you don't pass the test, now your correct, OE's cannot be included. You need to correct under EPCRS which involves making QNEC's. There's a couple of options available.

When can a contribution be deducted under EPCRS? Correction is to make up missed deferralks due to not implementing an employee's election. Ideally, we could deduct in 2010, because a) the missed deferrals relate to 2010, and b) they will be funded by the due date of the employer's return. Any help appreciated.

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about the three months interest. You're talking about $150 total (because 1% a month is extremely high). You get props for being so thorough, but in my opinion, with the loans, there is some wiggle room. So I find it very hard to believe that under audit, this would give you a problem... Another option would be to have the new am scheudle at the new company be $15K plus the accrued interest. Also, make sure the new am scheudle is within the 5 year max, including the 3 month holiday.

We've done 10% of whichever is greater, BOY assets or EOY assets. Don't even need a calculator

How is everyone treating a davis bacon plan, with a safe harbor match, that is top-heavy? Are you treating the TH exemption as invalidated because the plan no longer consists solely of SH and deferrals? Something about that conclusion doesn't feel right to me.

That';s the way it works...

I think this is the section ESOP Guy is referrign to. "If the plan administrator and the plan sponsor are the same person, only the signature as plan administrator needs to be included on the form. Electronic signatures are not required for electronically filed Forms 8955-SSA. " ESOP, I'm not sure it's saying the employer NEVER needs to sign the form. One might even read into this that employer should manually sign the form before electronically filing on their behalf (I choose not to read it that way, but they certainly haven't come out and said "employer's don't need to sign the SSA"). We're sending clients a copy and telling them to sign it, and file it in their records.

"The Filing Information Returns Electronically (FIRE) system will be down December 16, 2011 through January 2, 2012, for programming updates. It is not operational during this time for submissions." just two weeks before the extended deadline... Bravo, IRS. Bravo. Can't wait one more month to do your updates? You can wait 2years to release a form DUE A YEAR AGO, but can';t wait one more month for this currently operational system to be updated. Classic... From the IRS new article, with updated FAQ's on 8955-SSA's http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/epn_2011_6.pdf

I'm not trying to get anything for free. I just want to find what I'n looking for relative inexpensive amount of money. The Accurint from Lexis NExis is basically what we're looking for, but we don't have anywhere near the volume to pay their minimum monthly rate.

We're looking for a service where we can punch in the SS# and find out their last known address. We want to be able to do unlimited searches for a fixed annual fee. I've seen versions that are out there, but I am curious what others are doing to find these lost participants. At the present, there is a big hurdle for us in terms of doing these searches - who will pay the $10 fee. I want our staff to be able to do it whenever needed without a care in the world. Any thoights? I know there are some programs out there that are hundreds of dollars a month (background checkers, etc) which is way out of our price range for this!

Audited plan has brokerage accounts for some of its employees (the rest are at a daily val platform). I assume there is some level of revenue sharing going on between the funds and brokerages. What are other people doing about this?

Bird - We ahve until been hesitant about putting them in the SPD on our software because that means every time we change fees we need to go into our document software to change them. I've now created an offshoot to our Access database, where I can generate an appendix inside the same system that is used to track what our fees are, who pays them (client or participant), etc. As far as the fees in the brokerage accounts go, it seems to me that it's hopeless to even try to attempt this. We have plans that have accounts with 7 or 8 different broekrage accounts (we hate them bt they exist). Hopefully people like you wll convince them to update their statements, but I suspect that will be difficult even for them, especially when the same platform is used for a small number of retirement accounts, but a huge number of retail accounts... But I am comforted by the fact that there is no penalty for non-compliance. Proof of damages is required in court (according to Sungard) and with small plans (most commonly invested in brokerage accounts) that is exceedingly unlikely. So we're going to do the absolute best that we can, but I just can't see an efficient way to track this. I don;t think the financial advisors even know the all the possible fees within an account. And brokerage accounts are a vital tool in the small plan market, and I'm not going to look at this as a death-blow to the option.

http://www.relius.net/news/TechnicalUpdates.aspx I'm running out the door, but above is a link to Sungard's technical update pages. If you look at the participant fee disclosure write-ups (there's like 8 of them in there) you'll see that there is mention that many of the disclosures only apply to Desgnated Investment Alternatives. Honestly, I don't remember which one it was in, but if you do searches for "brokerage windows" you'll find it pretty efficiently.

The way I see it, some of the annual disclosures will be covered by the fund companies, but the rest will fall on us. For example, what is the fee for a loan/distribution? The fund company/recordkeepers don't know what our fees are, so we need to disclose them. I can't see how some of these things could be incorporated into an Americahn Funds statement. Also, bokerage accounts are exempted from an awful lot of these rules. Also, I know sungard says they spoke to the DOL, and the DOL is saying all ELIGIBLES need the annual disclosures regardless of whether or not they have a balance. But I think a reasonable interpretation of the rules is that you are not eligible to direct investments if you do not have a balance in the Plan. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

So we're trying to figure out how to comply with the new participant fee disclosure regs, and what we keep coming back to is this: What are the fund companies doing? It seems that the effort between us as the TPA and the fund company needs to be somewhat coordinated. Has anyone heard from Hancock, American Funds, Great West, ING, etc. etc. what they are doing, so that we can fill in the gaps? Or are they still trying to figure it out? Thanks,