Effen

Seems to me that you need to ask yourself a more basic question.... Why are you doing an end of year valuation for someone who obvioulsy wants to put the money in earlier?

But you CANT remove the J&S requirements from that Plan. That would be a 411(d)(6) violation.

FWIW, I think as long as the MP distribution requirements (QJSA) apply to ALL PS money, you should be ok. I have had attorneys tell me that if you co-mingle assets, the QJSA rules must apply to all participants, even those who never had a MP balance.

I agree with both PAX & GBurns. I find this very hard to believe. Usually they Union stops sending men if an ER is more than a month or two behind. What do they expect to tell the men who worked for this guy when they ask for their pension benefits? I find it hard to believe that the Union let this get so far out of hand, without some sort of collusion between the other Trustees or the Plan Administrator. If what you say is true, they most likely have BIG problems.

The comparison is great! Thank you for the follow-up.

You aren't talking about me are you? I recently took over a plan from a national firm that prepared and was paid for the 2003 valuation. We did the 2004 valuation. The prior actuary wanted $3K more to do the 2003 Sch. B. We agreed to do it for a lower cost. We had matched the 2003 valuation as part of our takeover, so I was fairly comfortable signing the Sch. B. I did however use my numbers, not the prior actuary. I hear what you’re saying. The shoe has been on the other foot before, but we usually do the Sch. B for a valuation we prepared, assuming that we were paid. If you haven’t been paid for the valuation, you don’t have any obligation to sign the Sch. B. Also, just because you did the valuation, doesn't mean that the new actuary can't redo it. Nothing is really final until the Sch. B is filed. Although you "know" the new actuary is using your numbers, it could be that he “matched” your numbers. Once he signs the Sch. B, they are his numbers and really none of your concern. Getting paid for work you did is certainly something I would continue to pursue, but short of an ethical client, they have no reason to pay you. If you know he stole your work, then you might want to contact ABCD, but it is possible he just redid your work and came up with the same values.

and most likely an "actuary" that isn't in compliance with the actuarial standards.

Is the owner participating in the 401(k)? You said he "wants to have an immediate eligibility 401(k) plan." If the owner isn't eligible to participate in the 401(k), I don't think you have any issues since you wouldn't need to aggregate it w. the CB for TH. Therefore, you don't need to give the ee a TH min. If that isn't the case, your plan documents are suppose to define which plan is dominant if you have more than one. If the DC is dominant, than I think you need to give it to him and it's most likely not deductible. If DB is dominant, possibly amend the CB to let him in so that he gets the TH min in the CB plan. I believe this would be ok under APRSC, but I'm not sure.

You may want to give Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline (ABCD) a call. http://www.abcdboard.org/ They should be able to give you some advise.

If MarZDoates, do DoeZEoates? Sorry, couldn't resist.

I was using "Top Heavy mins" to mean both benefits and vesting. That said, I just gave a quick read to 1.416 and didn't find anywhere that the top heavy vesting can only be applied to Non-Keys. Since I have a plan where the attorney said this was "ok", I will need to dig a little deeper. I assume you are stating that Top Heavy vesting would apply to everyone?

Blinky, Top Heavy mins only apply to Non Key's. The owner would be Key and therefore would not have to receive the mins.

Thanks mbozek, I'm with you now.

Are you asking about a potential merger of three plans? Yes, trustees have a fiduciary liability to do what is best for the participants of the plan.

What was the "event" that is triggering the distribution? Are they still your employees? If so, I don't think "going union" generally meets the requirements, but you need to look in the plan document.

Maybe this does it: Sec. 4318. Employee pension benefit plans (A) ... (B) In the case of benefits under the Thrift Savings Plan, the rights of a person reemployed under this chapter shall be those rights provided in section 8432b of title 5. 8432b. Contributions of persons who perform military service... ... (e) Effective Date; Applicability.--This section and the amendments made by this section-- (1) shall take effect on the date of enactment of this Act; and (2) shall apply to any employee whose release from military service, discharge from hospitalization, or other similar event making the individual eligible to seek restoration or reemployment under chapter 43 of title 38, United States Code, occurs on or after August 2, 1990. So apparently it was "retroactive" back to 1990, but not 1967.

I "think" I agree, but I have searched the Act and can't find anything that says pre'94 military service does not need to be counted. In addition, the participant contacted the local veteran’s assoc. rep who said that although USERRA was established in 1994 it did not exclude any prior military time and that participant should be credited for his time. Does any one have any sites confirming either opinion?

At first I thought this was an easy "no" answer, but the more I looked the more I questioned it.... Does USERRA apply to ALL military service? ie: hired in 1960 drafted in 1965, discharged and returned to work in 1967 and worked straight through to 2004. Does USERRA, or anything else, require the Plan to credit service for 65-67?

I believe the assumption is that the QPSA is a J&50, therefore, since the participant died prior to a benefit election, the QPSA kicks in and she gets 50% of the J&50. 100% of the J&100 may have been available if the participant had actually elected it, but he died prior to the election.

Winklevoss WinTech Sales: (203) 861-5514 Note: ask to speak with Joe Gilbert Pricing is comparabile to Lynchval last time I looked, maybe a little less. Do they have monthly minimum fees? they bill you each month based on how many keys you have and what type of keys your using (pension, medical, data, etc...) What initial fees and training expenses are involved? You will need to ask them but I found them to be VERY fair Do they charge multi-user licenses? Not sure I understand the question, but they charge you per user. If you only have one license, than only one person can use it at a time. Everyone can have access through the network, but the "key" restricts the number of users. They also have physical keys if you aren't networked. How do they handle software security to assure compliance with their licensing agreement, such as hardawre locks, monthly codes, license disks, etc. ? better ask them.

Andy, I'm not sure about UAL, but I believe most of the airline plans are collectively bargained single employer plans.

Proval (and I assume Lynchval and other iterative systems) expects three mortality tables (healthy actives, healthy retirees & disabled participants). The concept that someone can't die while active "does not compute". The idea of pre/post retirement comes out of simplified programs and small plans where the probability of death at younger ages isn't material. You can work around it, but why? Proval is designed to handle plans with tens of thousands of lives. Yes it can do a one life plan also, but getting Proval to replace Datair is kind of like replacing your Civic with a Hummer. You will have a lot more power and capabilities and it may take a while to figure out just how to use it. If your db practice is growing and your getting bigger plans you will absolutely need a system more sophisticated than Datair. It's just not designed to handle the bigger plans.

Proval has very good import/export capabilities into Excel. We generally reconcile the data in Excel, dump it into Proval for the runs and dump the output back into Excel to create our reports/statements. Proval is a very good "valuation" program. It is not really designed to do produce valuation reports, benefit statements, participant listings and/or benefit calculations (although it will do all of these things). Most of the users take the output and create their own customized reports. It also isn't the best for "small" plans. It's fully iterative and handles mult-decrements so telling it you just want to do something without pre-retirement mortality can tend to confuse it. Also, it still can not do an end-of-year valuation correctly. I think it's a great system, but it really isn't designed to replace Datair. We still do most of our small tax-shelter stuff in Excel or Datair, even though we have Proval for the "real" retirement plans.

We use Proval, which is a Wintech system. It is a very good system w/ good support from Wintech. It's fully iterative and gives you the ability to do projections w/ ease. It is quite a jump in cost from Datair, but you get what you pay for.

FWIW, we have terminated several plans where the Plan only provided full vesting for those who didn't have a ONE year break. We disclosed all this on the 5310 and sometimes the IRS asks a question and sometimes they dont, but I don't recall them ever making the Plan provide full vesting to those who incured a at least of one year break.