austin3515

Please respond, I am very curious to know if there is a consensus on how the DOL's new program will be used!

My understanding is there is an existential threat here, costs must be cut, and some ADP refunds is the least of anyone's concenrs. But 100% we need to run ADP testing. Glad you agree! I will propose this and if they are interested I'll probably submit this to ERISApedia Q&A service before I start doing amendments. But thanks!!

3% SHNEC Safe Harbor Plan. Client wants to discontinue the SHNEC but a) the keys have already made substantial 401k, and b) they are top-heavy. Can we discontinue the SHNEC as of April 30th (after providing the 30 days notice of course) and coincidentally create a short plan year ending 4/30/2025, and remain on a 4/30 plan year end for the foreseeable future? I'll be darned if that doesn't work. I think it does... Otherwise he has to terminate the plan and everyone loses (because terminating is the only way to stop the top-heavy minimum). Of course all keys would be told to stop doing 401k (in fact I have made it my practice to exclude keys from the plan by design (I called it a top-heavy inoculation).

Has anyone heard whether or not payroll companies will issue 1099rs for Roth employer contributions? My guess is they are just not set up for this since the Recordkeepers are doing it.

Had a plan where they could not produce census data for 2023 due to a change in payroll systems. Therefore we were not able to do the SSA. I see the penalties are now "bankrupt an organization" stupid. Anyone have a real world experience? I can see that you can ask for a waiver if the lateness is for reasonable cause. It's a larger plan so this is a good sized potential penalty we are talking about. Can you claim the waiver in advance or do you have to wait for the penalty to be assessed and then ask for a waiver? Curious if anyone has a real world experience... I assume since there is no late filer program they would be pretty accomodating. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/penalties-related-to-the-filing-of-forms-8955-ssa Also wondering if they even send out a penalty when you file late. Hard to imagine getting a $30,000 fine for filing this late. I could see if it was never filed, etc. Anyway look forward to hearing from you!

So true. I would submit these questions as a user of Relius for 20 years, this complex problem and the response was "please send a screenshot." OF what?? Plan specs, census screen, transaction, I could go on 😂

FT is my favorite company to work with. Their stuff is just so smooth.

We don;t do recordkeeping but I agree they definitely billed that as one of the advantages actually. Relius has a ton of stuff for daily val, so like 80% of the functionality doesn't apply, thus making it more complex for us platform / FBO/Pooled TPA's.

I will tell you I spoke to the team at ASC about their software and was very impressed. I would give them a look. My issue with Relius has really been on the service side. Many of you likely remember the "goo old days" where you would submit an incident and some incredible relius genius would call you back, do screen sharing, take control and fix whatever was wrong. IT was a sight to behold. personally I am very reliant on Crystal Reports. I have done a ton of custom reports. I don;t think any other packages are as flexible in that category. Definitely a big advantage for Relius for me. Are people aware that within 5 years Relius will no longer exist as thy are phasing it out?

First of all the plans I'm using cover a handful of people so no recordkeeper. Secondly the brokerage account platform we are using requires a Trustee/Rabbi Trust. I definitely have plans where we have skipped the rabbi trust and just used a corporate account but some execs want the extra protection.

Reopening this. This approach ends up being very impractical. The only logical source for a trustee is a Board member. Board members tend to turnover, and it's a lot of work to change trustees (Several forms, etc). We're doing this for some clients every couple of years. And then when distributions are needed, it's a lot of work to get these external parties to sign the forms because most brokerages will not accept just any docusign. And by the way, Board members are not always thrilled to take on this role because they are unpaid volunteers! . Are people having the participant/execs serve as trustee based on the position that even if this were to come up somehow, they would not "stick it" to these executives providing vital services to the community? Caring for the disabled, feeding the poor, and the like? I feel like in practice this is actually quite common, including with attorney drafted Rabbi Trusts.

You know that post was from 9 years ago? That's a no, LOL.

I am glad you mentioned this because it would of course be an important caveat!

Owner and one employee have 3+ years of service. Owners spouse is hired 1/1/2025 and there are no other employees. If I disaggregate for testing, the Otherwise Excludable portion of the test passes by default so I can give the spouse whatever percentage of pay I want. The owner's comp is $250K. I can give the spouse say $85% of their $50,000 or so and as long as my total contributions are wthin the max deductible, I should be good. This is seems to good to be true but it seems to me that it will work. Anyone think I am wrong here?

Also the match is indeed discretionary on the first 6% of pay contributed.

Well they have a 100% of 4% safe harbor match. And then an additional 4%. That's a stellar 8% and I don't have to tell you that's a heck of an employee benefit. So if the owner can get a few thousand bucks more legally by applying the 4% as a cap, they're not going to sweat the possible confusion for their 6 employees (in this case only one of whom would be capped). Anyway thats where this idea and logic is coming from... Not sure if it changes your view of the situation.

But you are not really matching 80% of the first 6% in that case. I am matching 80% on the first 6%. The owner contribute 5%, so 80% of his 5% is 4%, I don't see why you don't just communicate the match as 80% of the first 5% because that's what you are actually doing in this case and you would be withing the rules. Because the document is Rigid Discretionary and has 6% hard-coded. Thoughts?

I cant imagine the right answer to the plan sponsor making a mistake is to force the rollover to be cashed out. Return the funds to where they came from, a Roth IRA. Thats the correction. And for something as straightforward as this I would argue it is an eligible inadvertent failure. I know the IRS gave some guidance o nwhat that means and I confess I did not read it before posting this, but by golly this has to fit in there.

I know but the question is does the cap operate to cap individuals at 4% OR does it preclude the match formula from being more than 66.66% of 6%? This is the language in my Adoption Agreement (Corbel 401k Non-Standardized): If the "ACP test safe harbor" provisions are being used (i.e., Question 28.b. is selected), then the Plan will only take into account Elective Deferrals up to 6% of Compensation in applying the matching contribution set forth below and the maximum discretionary matching contribution that may be made on behalf of any Participant is 4% of Compensation. Honestly thins language to me says I can do an 80% of 6% match as long as I cap each individual at 4%.

I had to look it up on the IRS chart, and yup Roth IRA's cannot be rolled to Roth 401k accounts. Wicked dumb but there it was.

Isn’t this the kind of thing that can now be self corrected at any time under SECURE 2.0? I’m not sure but I thought you would be able to.

There must be some record keepers out there reading this. It would be great to know how you all are handling this. It seems like if the withdrawal and election are not coordinated you’re going to get a lot of tail chasing…

Business owner only contributes 5% of pay. If I do an 80% match on the first 6% of pay (plan uses Rigid Discretionary, so 6% is hard-coded), the owner gets a match of 4% of pay (80% of the 5% he contributes). There are a couple of participants who contributed 6% of pay or more. Am I prohibitted from using a match of 80% of the first 6% OR a, I simply required to impose a cap on the NHCE's of 4%? I can't believe I've never seen this scenario before!

Interesting question but it seems but it seems hard to believe that a RK would allow such an election without a concurrent election to stop contributing...

If the plan has a sophisticated recordkeeper that is tracking eligibility AND deferral elections then obviously it is doable. Even better if there is a 360 bridge. But the reality is many employers do not have that kind of capability available to them. So for example, there might be a recordkeeper, but they may not be tracking eligibility because the requisite data to do so may not be exportable from payroll in a useable format. Without full censsu data the RK cannot track eligibility and if you can't track eligibility than the RK cannot track auto enrollment. Oh and even if the RK can track eligibility and deferrals the employer has to be super meticulous about always checking the RK for any deferral elections that were made (because emails get lost, missed and diverted to junk). That's really hard to do if you have 15 employees (perhaps 5 contributers?) and one change every other year. Bottom line is all but those with the most robust reporting capabilities really must use the 10% approach because the reality is they cannot track auto enrollment/increases on their own (i speak in general terms obviously some people can do this). And I promise my description of the technology requirements above excludes a LOT of plan sponsors. ergo a LOT of employers should be using this 10% approach.