austin3515

Let me know if it works...

Yes, and the DOL is aware of this (according to customer service at the DOL) and there is no way around it, atl least on IFILE.

I had the exact same experience. Definitely impressive, and not just for the government

This is from memory but should be pretty close. Just don't get hung up if I miss something or it doesn';t line up exactly. 1) From the Home Page, there should be a link that says you have plans in progress or something like that. Click that link 2) Then you should see your plan with a blue hyperlink thing. Click that 3) Then click on "Associate Signers" from the gray bar towards the top of the screen 4) Type in the email address associated with the signer from your TPA shop (should be the email for the account you are currently logged inot. 5) Go back to the home page, it should say you have one plan awating your signature. Click on that. Then, click on the plan you're trying to sign. 6) There should be a "sign" button towards the top of the page. Clikc on that, accept the agreement, and then fill in all of the information for the credentials, etc. 7) Then go back to the home page - there should be another link that says you have plans waiting to be submitted. Click on that. Then, click on the plan you're trying to sumbit. 8) Click on the submit button.

Does anyone know of an IFILE work around that would allow a paid preparer to sign the 5500, but still have the true plan administrator's name show up on the box on the right hand side of the page? According to customer service at EFAST2 (which was actually great) there is no way around, this but I just thought I would check.

I had to export a few plans from RGF and import to IFILE, which was a breeze. And getting the client to sign was also a breeze, because everything was at the same site, and not to metnion the DOL's site is holding up very very well. The invitation proicess worked out perfectly, simple and efficient. The only down side is the lack of reporting on a firm level, but we might be able to work around that by saving the confirm emails for comprehensive pre-deadline checks, which we always did anyway. Any thoights from anyone else??

Can you obtain the AckID from within Ifile, or is it necessary to screen print each of those pop-up boxes that indicates the ackid?

I felt bad for them until now!! Today, we got a message that says we only have 5 plans left for publishing. No other previous warnings - 5 left! I called them to buy more, but I'm thinking we're going not be able to publish until they call us back (been on hold for 10 minutes)... (we took on a late efiling project for another company which is why we have so many left). How could they not jsut billl us for what we used????? We're an exisitng cusotmer for crying out loud, and the plan books are $7 a piece - can;'t we get a little credit here??? On principal I'm moving to FT William (as long as the owners sign off on it...)

-Owners who have participated for 20 or 30 years can have close to a million dollars in their account or more -Family businesses (oh biy, this is a great one - Dad, Wife and 2 kids!) -Plans with 5 or more owners. I've just described MANY small businesses. Sure, plans with 3 employees are almost always going to be top-heavy, but I would not go so far as to call it uncommon in plans with 30 employees.

Am i the only one readiong too deeply into the last paragraph? Certainly a letter to the IRS saying the filing wasn't timely because the web-site crashed when you tried, etc. etc. would by you a couple of days? The web-site crashing thing so far has only delayed us, but of course, when the site crashes on 10/15... This assumes of course that you reallly did try to log in and file and fail...

Does it help the sponsor to know that there is no particular due date for the top-heavy? They could fund it piecemeal. I like the cash basis idea, just make sure everything is cash basis at least at y/e. Would be sort of interesting if the beginning balances are on an accrual basis, not sure how/if that could be rectified since there is no means of converting on the 5500 accrual to cash. My 2 Cents: I've seen some DEVESTATING outcomes. If I was the owner of the TPA shop, personally, I would resign but also send an email or letter return receipt telling them they're insane for not making the contribution and the plan will surely be dqed if audited. Sieve, you're breadth of knowledge is very impressive, to say the least. However, I don;t think you've dealt a lot with owners of small businesses who work 80 hours a week for $50,000 a year instead of closing their business and putting 20 or 30 people out of work altogether, which could be a VERY real possibility when facing a 3% THM. Is that a fair statement? I'm not suggesting I don't agree with you in principal, but I'm not hearing any compassion for the poor guy that got "punched in the face" by the most ridiculous rule ever conceived.

is anyone seeing processing stopped statuses flip over to Filing Received? We have a lot coming back in the last day or two (even after adjusting for higher volume) as processing stopped, but nothing obvious is jumping out at us as a cause.

Let's say the client omits 3 term dates from the census file. Personally, I don't see this as a big deal. Even if it came to light next year, I would not do an amended 5500.

That;s not good.. Am I the only that thinks this is pretty common in the "micro market"?

You are suggesting that this test is satisfied then in the scenario that I laid out? (BTW, I hope it is b/c we've let clients do this because we had agreed that this was true!)

What if the participants accounts are at, say, John Hancock, and the owner has his money with his financial advisor in an FBO account. The advisor has a $500K mininimum account balance. Hard to suggest that the participants have similar options. Are we saying that this would not be allowable (because obviously it won't pass testing since no NHCE's have the option)?

all you need is a resolution since the provisions of the plan are not being changed. Your just pulling the plug on it.

ASPPA ASAP directly on point... http://www.asppa.org/document-vault/pdfs/a...2010/10-33.aspx

Not sure I agree since since the DFVC penalty accrues from 7/31, and would always therefore end up being the 750 (for a small plan)

No cite either, but I agree with Bird. It's in the EOB though, I had looked this up once before.

403(b) Plan's at TIAA tend to have about half of their account balances allocated to terminated participants, none of whom have been reported to SSA before. So now we need to report the new people who terminate on the SSA, I assume? Here's the tricky part, as people take distributions, how do we know which of the sea of people were previously reported on the SSA?? I know we haven't even made it to the 15th but was wondering what I should be telling my 403b clients for whom we're delivering a form 5500? Will there be a follow up for the SSA?

Or perhaps they did not create a password to fully activate the account. We had this come up a lot, because people would print out the page with the credentials and assume (quite reasonably I might add) that they were done. When in fact, if you continue on for a couple more screens your credentials are never activated and you get "processing stopped" when you file... But if none of this is the case, and they really did expire, please do let us know because that would be one for the record books...

IOn Rleius, there is an attachment for Accountants Opinion, which is where we are putting the audited statements. When we do this, we get no validation errors. But there is also this: "financial statements used in formulating accountant's opinion" What the heck is that??

I should say that before I heard it was a commonplace recommendation to file without the auditors report, I recommended against it, because after all, clients are signing "under penalty of perjury" that the return is COMPLETE and accurate. I was never able to reconcile this recommendation with that fact, but the DOL clearly doesn't seem to feel this is an issue (if they did, I don't think they would have written their recommendations that way). But I do agree wholeheartedly that if you go this route, make sure it doesn't burn you if things don't go as expected!!

Is the take home from the FAQ that the DOL would rather have SOME (indeedn MOST) ifnormation rather than no information at all? After all, they have never penalized for late filing of the auditor's report in the past (assuming it was filed before the really nasty nasty letters)- why would they start now?