oriecat

Ha! I love the weird things people come up with to try and sell. And the stupid people who bid on them.

Don't know if it will help or further confuse, but you can find the definitions in ERISA at 29 USC 1002 (33) http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...02----000-.html

At the bottom of each forum, you can choose how to sort and sort by number of views descending. I only did the 401k forum and a thread entitled Nationwide Terminating 300 plus PPA's has over 10k views.

If deducted pre-tax through the 125 plan, then it is considered an employER contribution. This has to be reported on the W-2 in Box 12 with code W. W-2 Instructions: http://www.irs.gov/instructions/iw2w3/ch01.html#d0e1309 According to the Form 8889 instructions online, it has to be completed whether it was employee or employer contributions. "Who Must File: You must file Form 8889 if any of the following apply. : You (or someone on your behalf, including your employer) made contributions for 2004 to your HSA." http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8889/ch01.html

I'm going to assume that the family includes the ee's own children (so no question about their nontaxable dependent status) plus the same sex spouse. If you used the amounts from EE+1, that would make a $70 ER contribution to be imputed, and premiums of $50 pretax and $150 aftertax. The reason I use those amounts is because if you then add the kids on, they should be nontaxable, so they shouldn't affect it. But I am sure it can be argued different ways. I think that's how I would do it though (but I don't claim to be an expert or anything!)

Can you give the specifics of the plan? Total premium Employer contribution Employee contribution Probably need for both the family plan (or ee & sp if thats what they have) and the employee only?

Some of this will depend upon your agreement with AFLAC. Are they remitting the employer taxes for you. or will you have to do it? Will they send the W-2s or do you have to add to your W-2s? Why are you allowing them to pre-tax it anyway??

Ours is also end of the month.

I've read differing opinions about whether you can ask for the money back. In my view, it is improper. Even if you asked, what are the odds you will get it back. This is one of the losses that your forfeited monies would offset. If you always got it back, then you would never have losses and there would be no risk on the employers part. No, the excess is not reportable as income.

Is this just an issue of confusing a cafeteria plan with a Section 125 plan? We have an FSA through our Section 125 plan. It is not a cafeteria plan.

Mathematically speaking, the 55% wouldn't fail, but it wouldn't pass either. If you try to divide by zero, the answer would be undefined. What if you use the Top 20% option to determine the HCEs?

Whoa. Say goodbye to provided coverage! Here's your double digit premium increase and by the way, none of it is deductible anymore either... where's the incentive to provide it at all then? And dropping the state and local tax credit?! Back to double taxation, very nice. :angry: So your average joe will pay taxes on their taxes, so that the investors don't have to pay on their dividends and capital gains. :angry:

Could the beneficiary waive their rights to the funds and specify someone else for it to go to? (I have no idea if that is legal, just wondering!)

Do you get the EBIA weekly? Maybe you could print out some of the court cases where the employer was severely fined for their notice violations? Maybe seeing money attached would help her realize whats at stake...

If she won't believe you, then its just a disaster waiting for a lawsuit and she'll find out soon enough I guess! What reason does she give for not believing the written information you give her? Have you tried printing out just a basic FAQ from the DOL that covers those main questions? http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.html

How much was it underpaid? 54.4980B-8 Q-5 (d) (d) If timely payment is made to the plan in an amount that is not significantly less than the amount the plan requires to be paid for a period of coverage, then the amount paid is deemed to satisfy the plan's requirement for the amount that must be paid, unless the plan notifies the qualified beneficiary of the amount of the deficiency and grants a reasonable period of time for payment of the deficiency to be made. For this purpose, as a safe harbor, 30 days after the date the notice is provided is deemed to be a reasonable period of time. An amount is not significantly less than the amount the plan requires to be paid for a period of coverage if and only if the shortfall is no greater than the lesser of the following two amounts: (1) Fifty dollars (or such other amount as the Commissioner may provide in a revenue ruling, notice, or other guidance published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin (see Sec. 601.601(d)(2)(ii) of this chapter)); or (2) 10 percent of the amount the plan requires to be paid.

That doesn't make any sense to me. The election notice has to say when coverage is ending and why. How would that be incorporated into the general notice? Just leave it blank? Say N/A? I think it would make it very confusing.

I tried running the change through http://www.changeofstatus.com/index.asp and it kept saying No Change allowed.

Here's the code: http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...05----000-.html

I am setting up a transportation fringe program so my employees can pay for their bus passes with pre-tax dollars. We will sell the items to employees at a 7% discount (giving them back most of our FICA savings), so we are essentially just breaking even (excluding the cost of my time to administer, which won't be much, we're only talking about a handful of employees.) I looked over a lot of the old discussions, and I do not want to set this up like a section 125. I just want to deal with it each month, when they need a pass or voucher, they sign an authorization for it and I give it to them. In one of my localities, I can get passes on consignment, so then we would just deduct the discounted amount pretax and then we pay for the pass. In another localitiy, we have to buy vouchers, which the employee would use to buy their pass. Again we would just deduct the discounted amount pretax. We already paid for the vouchers, so this would pay us back for what we already put out. I think both of those situations are correct, but of course would love to hear if you see a problem with it. Now I have another locality where I do not think I can get passes or vouchers. So I am trying to wrap my head around how to deal with that so that it would equate with the others. If the pass is $28, then it seems like I would need to reimburse the employee the entire $28, which would be nontaxable, since its an excludable fringe, and then the employee would pay us back the discounted amount pretax. But that seems like double dipping somehow. Does that sound right, or is that an allowable way to deal with it? I think I am thinking about this too much... Thank you for any thoughts on this.

I hope this isn't too stupid of a question... back in April, we did the plan amendment and plan sponsor certification for HIPAA, sent it off to the TPA, thought it was all signed, we were good. They then sent us a whole new plan document with the added sections and a new execution page. I just ignored it, since we'd already signed everything. They now sent a letter saying how we never did the HIPAA stuff and they need it asap or we won't get our reports. So I am faxing copies of the amendment and certification. If we have a signed amendment is it necessary to recreate the entire plan doc and re-execute it? It seems redundant to me. Is that normal?

They are certainly trying to have it both ways, aren't they? If you paid for the period, then you should be covered for the period and claims should be reimbursed. If you're not covered for the period and they won't reimburse claims, then they have to give the funds back. What else are you paying for then? They can't just keep your money for nothing. Is that too much of an over-simplification?

I don't see anything in his post to indicate any double dipping. Where did he say the original premiums are being paid pre-tax already? I think some Sec125 tpas offer this and call it Premium Reimbursement Account.

Where does it require that? I will admit to not having read the regs yet (since I don't have to comply until 11/1/05). But just looking at the Model notice they provide, I don't see where they indicate it needs to be included. At the end you have to enter the name and contact info of the group health plan, but that should be the plan info, not the carrier info, I think.

So tomorrow we await 350 posts from R Butler!