austin3515

Nice, thank you! I've always wondered about how you knew if your dental plan and your health plan were one or two plans. I'll read this through one day!

I can;t be repsonsible for semantics in this arena! But let me put it this way which is really my point. There would not be a 5500 filing requirement for a 125 Plan. So in that sense alone (which is what I intended) it would not be a plan. Do we agree on that? The Plans which are funded by those premiums are the plans for 5500 purposes.

What does "Rut roe" mean? Do you agree that health plan can be funded with premiums paid via a 125 or not, but it's still the same health plan?

And Participants is just employees. An employee who includes his wife and two kids on the insurance is counted as 1. Although full disclaimer I am not a health and welfare expert, but I have been asked this question about 1,000 times. Also, a Section 125 "plan" is NOT a plan. It's a tax code provision allowing pre-tax contributions to be made to REAL PLANs, like health insurance, dental insurance, etc. Anyway, I don;t know enough to be dangerous, but I do know that this notion of a "125 plan" is a huge misunderstanding out there.

Also if you have a directed trustee, then wouldn;t it stand to reason that it better be darn well documented who exactly is responsible for all of that stuff? So if the guy named as trustee is a top executive, and his excuse, well it wasn;t my responsibility, I'm just a lowly directed trustee, to me that would be used as evidence against you merely for the fact that is so disingenuous.

Well that's just it, the guy who has to be named at the trustee is the person with the most authority in the room almost all the time (at least in my "small market" plans). So for example, who signs off on Fund Changes or who hires the advisors, etc. IF it's the same person then it sounds like we all agree there is no purpose to it?

Can someone please explain the benefit of adding someone who is clearly a fiduciary as a "Directed Trustee." Our document allows an individual to be named as a directed trustee. Shoudl we always be using it or is it a moot point for someone like a business owner or a non-owner CEO, etc. when they are clearly a fiduciary anyway?

https://www.irs.gov/statistics/2017-pension-plan-burden-survey Over the last few months. They're asking questions and the client is thinking (and me too) that the questions might sound benign, but if they answer wrong will that trigger an audit? For exmaple, one quesiton is "Who has all of the plan records? a) The Employer, b) the recordkeeper or c) the TPA. If they tell the truth and say recordkeeper will the IRS be "horrified" at the dereliction of duty? And if they don;t respond will the IRS say "hmm... they didnt respond voluntarily, so maybe I'll subpoena them" (I've been watching too much news!). Are we overthinking this?

Are people responding to this? I have a client who has received 3 reminders to complete this "voluntary" survey? Please advise what you guys are doing?

Working on a plan with employer securities and finding that there are certain required disclosures as part of the 404a5 notice rules. It seems like the disclosures are generic in nature. Would someone be kind enough to share the language they have in one of their disclosures? I assume there is a difference in disclosure if one is publicly traded or not--mine is privately held. Thanks in advance!

Let's assume the contributions if any are completely discretionary. The key is that the the payroll taxes are due "at the time of the deferral" https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-03-20.pdf “Annual deferrals,” as used in this notice, means the amount of compensation deferred under the plan in accordance with § 457(b), and in compliance 4 with the annual maximum deferral limitation under the plan, whether by elective deferral or nonelective employer contribution, during a taxable year. [whatever this last part means...] When is the EMployer Contribution deferred? Let's assume the contribution is discretionary. If it is discretionary, then unless/until the money is set aside in a separate account (within a Rabbi trust for example), I would say it is reasonable to assume it has not yet been deferred. On the other hand, if the Board declares in October 2018 that the Employer will contribute $15,000 for the CEO, and then sets that money aside in March of 2019, presumably it would be taxable for FICA in 2018. I'm assuming no vesting schedule. Of course for the payroll deduction stuff it is easy. The day it is withheld it is deferred.

Agreed, I do use that on occasion. For some reason though Top-Paid Group election isn;t on there which makes me crazy :). And interestingly I've been leery of using it for the same reason as stated above (losing familiarity with the AA). Anyway, thanks!!

You know what I misread our newsletter from them. I thought it was what you are describing, but thats not it. All they are saying is that there is one single Adoption Agreeemnt for 401k, PS and MP. And if you'd like for a MP or PS only plan, you can have a separate adoption agreemetn that hides all of the 401k provisions. So my misunderstanding. I do like that option as you described it though. It would be a nice reference tool especially for external clients (if not for internal purposes).

Corbel just sent us an email that they are adding a "collapsible" Adoption Agreement where the unselected options will be suppressed. Does anyone have more information on what that will look like? I assume for example a non-safe harbor plan, the whole safe harbor section will be suppressed. But their email was a little sparse on detail, perhaps because they haven't figured it out yet. Just curious what others know about it. I'm also concerned about losing familiarity with all of the options available for my own selfish purposes (i.e., being an expert on what my own document can do which I have due in part to seeing it entirely all the time).

The plan currently allows only lump-sums 60 days after date of term. All participants are currently active with no plans to leave or retire. I assume no one has a problem with me adding a) the ability to defer the distribution of an account following termination of employment, or b) adding installment options? All of those pesky rules that make this essentially impossible in a 409A do not apply here.

I guess I don;t disagree with you, but nevertheless it's odd that something so simple isn't clear as day.

Left scratching my head, how could this not be clear cut??

So the DOL Regs, and EOB both say essentially "All participants must receive the SAR." We have always interpreted this to mean all active/eligible employees plus any terms with balances determined as of the last day of the plan year. But I can;t seem to find anything that says that excplcitly. What do people think? Do you know of anything more specific?

You just proved I have been right all along! Steer clear of ESOP’s! theyre fascinating animals but I just ran out of patience to expand my expertise.... thanks for all the info though! It was helpful. I had never conceived of N upside down plan like that.

RBG has it right. If you have problems in your small sample, you pick a bigger sample. I used to be a plan auditor, and that's audit 101. Now, part of this is that the auditors lack the requisite expertise in auditing 401k plans. Oh they think they know everything they need to, but the reality is that many many do not. Now, some are awesome at this work don;t get me wrong. But a lot only don't realize they haven't got a clue. Also, auditors send confirmation letters to participants home addresses directly to confirm information. So that is how they would get independent corroboration that the data is correct.

I don;t do any ESOPs (something about you tells me you do), but do you mean you DO use net assets (i.e., assets net of liabilities). You don;t use total assets. I just want to be precise about the definition of net asssets because to me net assets is total assets less liabilities. Again, I may definitely not be thinking about this correctly given my lack of ESOP work...

I have a calculator for lost interest that duplicates the DOL output, but helps with allocating the interest to multiple participants. Anyway, I need the rate for the quarter ended June 30, 2019. Are they behind due to shut-down? Also, when I assume the rate was unchanged at 6%, I noticed something funny when I tried to recalculate my interest. I entered corrections dates a week or two into April and the interest calc is identical to dates ending right at 3/31/19. i.e., the DOL website uses 0% for April. If anyone knows someone at the DOL, tell 'em Austin said this one is on me :).

Ahh wait a minute - did you send the notices out in time? If you didn't send the notice out in time, then you're not eligible for the new correction methods. Maybe that's it?

Maybe their an "ERISA Attorney" (notes the quotes!) and not an ERISA attorney. Just becaus they went to law school does not make them experts in ERISA. We all know you can't dabble in this stuff you have to work on it 12 months a year.

Jeeze, I've been working with them for 10 years and I had no idea they were a Canadian company. (just to clarify - not that there's anything wrong with that :)). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great-West_Life_Assurance_Company