austin3515

Well it doesn;t reference in my opinion the key issue which is the commingling. If there is a business purpose (union / non-union, different legal entities, salaried/hourly) then seperate plans are separate plans, no doubt about it, and no aggregating for audit counts. It's putting all the money in one recordkeeping contract that gets fuzzy.

I was speaking to a large recordkeeper recently who of course will remain nameless. All I know is that this is a thing that is done. I personally do not agree with it because the ERISA definition of a plan about commingling assets, etc. I doubt the Master-Trust option is ever feasible in this size plan. So I don't like it personally. I get the motivations though, obviously the pricing is much better and no blackout period. See if you get a letter from a lawyer on fancy letterhead is my advice to the TPA. It's what I would do.

Participant maxes out his 401k at Employer at $26,000. He starts a new job in December with immediate eligibility and a match. My advice is go ahead and contribute to get the match and then request a refund of your 401k after year-end. My recollection (which I cannot confirm) is that such a refund request would not kick off an orphan match situation requiring match forfeitures. The logic of course is the employee could request the excess refund from either plan. Anyway if someone can set me straight one way or the other I would appreciate it. Completely different of course then someone getting matched on 401k over $26,000 in the same plan or even for the same employer.

Looking for billing software that works well with quarterly billing, flat fee+ per participant formulas. Anyone had great success with a particular package? Not quickbooks.

Legal in state where the entity does business. Are there any recordkeepers who will work with these businesses? I know it's a whole thing I just am curious to know if its doable.

Plan had basic safe harbor match in 2020 but payroll company calced as 100% on 4%. epcrs says I can amend retro to increase a benefit but 2016-16 says I can only increase safe harbor match by 10/1 (right?). which one wins?

This is so funny, I was just coming out here now to ask this EXACT question, LOL. With respect to BG's answer it seems to me it is the answer that is beyond reproach. Harm comes only to those who do NOT file when it was required - not to those who DO file when it is not required. Anyway, I'm going with it.

Impossible. The rationale is the mutual fund expense is intrinsic to the investment itself. IT's a cost of operting the "company" that you are investing in. Even though it is not the same, it is tantamount to reimbursing a participant who invests in IBM for the rent IBM paid on its real estate. I know it's a crazy analogy but it is spot on. You are investing a "business" that is in the business of investing money and one of the expenses of that business is to pay a fund manager. Anything you do in this regard would be an employer contribution, and with it goes everything that applies to employer contributions (document provisions, testing, 415 limits, etc). In other words, forgettaboutit!

Not preapproved I don't think. Code 3D not used on 5500, and they filed for a determination letter. Again I have a feeling the same template document is used for governmental plans where this would be fine. The document is definitely written by this particular national provider, not an attorney. I probably should clarify as of right now I have just the SPD.

Under elapsed time if someone was hired on July 26 2021 works for a week, quits and comes back on July 1st 2022, then on July 26 2022 they have a year of service. under this plans rules they do not which I think is a real issue.

OK but more to the question I guess - you agree this violates ERISA's vesting rules, right?

"Vesting is determined by your years of service from your date of hire to your date of termination. You are credited with vesting for all years and months of employment. If you work an hour of service in a month, you will be credited with a complete month of service." And then "The value of your individual account attributable to employer contributions is fully vested when you have completed 3 years of vesting service." Not equivalencies because the doc would have referenced 1,000 hours a year requirement. It's clearly elapsed time with the addition of the 1 hour a month requirement. I believe this provider does government work, so I think this might be an option that was available for them to check for a non-ERISA governmental plan. That's all I can think of.

"One month of vesting service is provided for any month during which an Employee is credited with at least 1 hour of service." This seems like one of those unusual circumstances where a provision appears to be quite generous, but just does not check the boxes in the right way. This provision is neither elapsed time, nor based on a minimum number of hours in a vesting computation period. Therefore, I don't see how this rule complies with ERISA? Do others agree?

Those are IRS rules not Dol. So no help there unfortunately… i would do the same as you by the wat if a client told me about a late deposit. I have some clients who are just as conscientious!!

Oh we are not the cheapest service provider out there. Cost is not the primary consideration for any of our clients because as we know they can all just go bundled. This to me seems a bit too far, even for a firm like ours that agrees wholeheartedly our clients pay us to do stuff for them. We send all forms (not just 5500's!) signature ready for example. I don't know to me this just seems like its over the line into policing versus consulting. I suppose if you're willing to do all of the remedial work I just described as part of your normal fees then I guess the clients wouldn't care too much since the corrections probably don't exceed $15. But thats just my point exactly, charging $150 (bare minimum0 to correct a $15 problem seems way out of whack.

Oh I agree whole heartedly. Finding the late deposits is a snap! But now you found this late deposit. Are you not now "obligated" to do the correction? And isn't your fee to correct something like this $150 or something like that, assuming you don't go through VFCP? You have to calculate the interest, allocate the interest to the deposit, figure out if they all still have an account before depositing 6 cents. In our office if person A does something, person B (a more seasoned consultant/manager type) has to review it. I assume you have to charge for all of that work. That's what I mean where clients might get a little bent out of shape.

My question is, why are you looking at the timing that closely anyway? IF we reviewed every deposit for every client for timeliness we would need a dedicated team just for that! We ask our clients to tell us if there were any late deposits in our annual request for information (after explaining the rules). Sure if a client forgot to send in an entire payroll, we're calling it late, etc. But we're definitely not reviewing every deposit for timelines... And I have a feeling clients would go a little bonkers if we were "micro managing" in this way. But hey that's just me. It's one of the reasons I have avoided 3(16). Can't take that postion if you're a 3(16). Late is late and YOUR the Administrator now so its your responsiblity.

I'm sure it depends on the recordkeeper. They went to great great great expense to automate their systems to send out their fee disclosure. So that type of arrangement probably does not lend itself to a different notice. But Principal for example mails notices all at the same time of year, and we can upload whatever notice we want to be included in the package. The question is, can they suppress their fee disclosure and send just the notices that you upload? It's possible. Again its going to be recordkeeper by recordkeeper. Some recordkeepers only write the notice and its the sponsors responsibility to send it out. 20 recordkeepers, 20 unique answers to this question.

Well they are more similar than dissimilar. I mean their both ERISA covered retirement plans. I realize the answer is different. What is amazing is the lack of guidance. One little 2 pager would do it. I know, I know, careful what you wish for because odds are you won't like the guidance. But still try convincing a social services non-profit with a tight budget to spend $1,000 for 2 hours of an attorneys time on a plan that has been used in "several" years.

I'm just guessing this will not be much consolation to my client because they will likely view their role as involving keeping the organization itself out of harms way. somehow I surmise plaintiffs attorneys will have a hard time parsing the difference between the old CFO and the Organization itself. After all the ORganization had a duty to monitor... Well I mean this is the issue isn't it? It shouldn't be over your incredibly capable head 😁. You don't have to have a law degree to know that a 401k plan with a bum investment contract with surrender charges and "all-in" over 2% will cause fiduciary liability. If we dont know, and we are the experts in this industry, how in the world are our clients supposed to know?

Thank you it is a challenge at times to keep it straight but my plan in question IS an ERISA Plan (hence the fiduciary concerns).

🤣🤣

Well, if this is the case, then there are no pre-1/1/09 contracts that I have ever heard of. For what it is worth, I don't see how this could possibly be the case, since participants are only eligible for distributions once they are terminated. The employer would seem like a necessary component to that determination...

"But the current fiduciaries wouldn't be liable if the plan was just invested in bad investments, because they would have no power to change that." Is this formally written anywhere by the DOL, etc?

If their match pattern is already known, we do Rigid (i.e., pay-period math, 50% of 6%). Sole downside is giving up optional true-up, but hey if the "optional true-up" was necessary we can just choose annual calc period instead. The benefit here is no notice. I hate notices! If they never use the match, we use the Flexible so we don't rope ourselves in. I also never want to include a cap on deferrals in the SPD that gets handed out because someone might get the wrong idea if it will never be used. Anyway, that's where we've settled!