QDROphile

Technically, the IRS should not have given authority for loan rollovers because the distribution will extingusih the loan in the process. That does not happen with loan transfers. But the IRS forgot basic principles and did give the authority, and so now we have loan rollovers if the plan terms provide for them. A practical development, but intellectually unsatisfying.

I think a plan needs to be very careful about minding its own business and considering only those things that are necessary and proper for law and plan compliance. Domestic relations orders can cover a lot of ground and much of it can have nothing to do with the plan or QDRO requirements. Once a plan administrator ventures outside the plan concerns, the ground gets very slippery. The plan administrator is not the federal marshall. This situation is different from the Advisory Opinion on the bona fides of the divorce. That does not mean that the plan turns a blind eye to what is put in front of it, either. On balance, I think the plan is not responsible for what the alternate payee agrees to do with property or what the court orders the alternate payee to do with property, but this situation begs for the plan to get its own competent legal advice. You might consider that the consequences of the participant paying a "share" of the taxes will multiply the applicable taxes (the payment of the share is income to the AP), probably beyond the 10% amount, so the deal has real economic and tax effects. Will they comply with tax law in this respect? Is it the plan's issue? Asking for ancillary documents is generally a bad idea. Additional documents compound problems, especially with interpretation.

OK, the dirty little secret is out. Small plans that use sophisticated testing are violating the CODA rules right and left.

It seems that the loan should have been treated as taxable much earlier, probably more like six months after you failed to make a scheduled payment. Once the loan was treated as distributed (or actually distributed by offset), the interest after that point would not be taxable. Accrued interest up to that point would be included in the distribution and would be taxable. It sounds like your Form 1099 for the loan was years late and about 4 years of interest too much. You need to check the defaullt and distribution rules for the plan, possibly explained in the summary plan description. The plan administrator should also be questioned. The five year distribution delay in the plan design should not trump the rule on when defaulted loan amounts are taxable and misunderstanding about that is probably what caused the problem.

I did not say that any standard was violated by the loan to prevent the eviction. I said that plan provisions that depend on the proposed use of the proceeds create a difficult problem because the duty of the administrator to follow the plan terms is not spelled out. I don't think one can simply conclude that a proposal that is OK on its face allows the adminstrator to cut the check and do nothing more. I did not say that the administrator had ongoing monitoring responsibility, but I can certainly argue that cutting the check is not necessarily enough under various circumstnaces. I don't think that hardship or loan rules provide the answer because the issue is created by plan provisions. The plan provisions are not simply implementing the hardship or loan rules that are found in other authority. The question is, what does the plan require because of its extraordinary terms? Perhaps the plan says to make loans under the same standards as for hardship distributions. If so, then the hardship distribution rules would define the responsibilities. Now consider what happens when the administrator finds out about the lie. Is that a loan default? Is the use of proceeds of the loan one of the loan terms? If not, has the administrator failed to administer the plan terms adequately? In the case of the switch from rent payments to house purchase, I think the administrator would not have to take remedial action, such as exercis default rights, but the justification is that the plan terms have not been violated. The administrator should document the facts that justify the action or inaction of the administrator under the circumstances.

So if a particpant applies for a loan for purchase of a house, the plan administrator only asks to see some documentation that a house purchase is underway and then the particpant gets the loan? If that is the administrative standard for compliance with plan document terms, I think the plan had better be amended to remove the uncertainty about what is required under the express restrictions. If the plan terms are serious in their limitation of purpose and use, I think the administrator should be equally serious about making sure the the restrictions are honored. I don't think it is a good idea to have the restrictions, but if they are there, they need to be implemented with some degree of diligence. The problem is knowing how far to go and the right answer depends on the circumstances. For example, in the house purchase, one might expect the loan proceeds to be delivered to the closing escrow. That will prevent some puzzlement about the shiny new car in the employee parking lot the next week.

I don't think the issue is the hardship distribution rules. The issue is plan terms and the need to follow them. The participant cannot use the money however the participant chooses. It may not be very smart, but the plan terms limit loans to specific purposes. Through the dissembling, or change of mind, of the participant, the loan proceeds were not used for the stated purpose. While the issues are all very interesting, I can't get too worked up about it because the loan proceeds were in fact used for a permissible pupose. The chances of qualfication problems are extremely remote. I suggest documenting the actual use of proceeds to show that the ultimate use was not contrary to plan terms. Consider changing plan terms. Loan administration is bad enough without complications arising out of an unfortunate attempt to compromise and blend different concepts and rules. The more interesting question going forward how the lying employee will be treated in the future.

You might also wish to track down DOL Advisory Opinion 92-17A, which says that a plan administrator does not have to dig too deeply into the state law behind the terms of the order. Contrast it with Advisory Opinion 99-13A, which says that the administrator can't be completely asleep. The administrator has to determine if the submission is a domestic relations order, but agency orders may be domestic relations orders. If the agency were acting intelligently, it would explain its authority and relate it to domestic relations law. Keep in mind that the order still has to qualify, even though it may be a domestic relations order.

If the options are loaded with restrictions on exercise they can fall outside of the attribution rule.

What does the plan say? You may find that the hardship withdrawal provisons are written to apply to someone who is employed by the plan sponsor. After termination of employment, they do not apply.

If you hold the amount in suspense until the person returns and is qualified, what if the person does not? How do you allocate then and for what year do you allocate? Another way to do it is to allocate all the forfeitures without the missing participant and make up the amount the person would have received if and when the person returns. Yes, it costs the employer something, but the employer makes up all the other employer funded contributions based on imputed service and pay for the period as well. I don't know what is best. It is disappointing that we don't have guidance for these issues. Military service is not that rare.

Mr. Maldonado: After way too much puzzlement, I think I understand now why you responded so negatively to my posts. I did not make clear that I was not saying anything about recovering from the plan any amounts related to overpayment of wages or other ill-gotten gain outside of the plan. I was focused only on the contributions to the plan that were based on the amount of wages that should not have been paid. I did not respond to the full scope of the question and I may not have responded to what the original post was really after. My original post did not suggest removing money from the plan, either. For the sensitivity and complexity of the subject, it was a pithy response. I don't lisp, but some might see it that way, too.

Mr. Maldonado: Thank you for reminding readers of these Message Boards that what they find here is not legal advice nor any kind of advice that they can rely on directly. The contributors here respond without having very many facts, access to plan documents or the opportunity to investigate. The comments on the Boards vary from precise answers with authoritative citations in response to precise questions to "food for thought" that might be helpful as inspriation for other ideas or developed and evaluated further by the recipent, all depending on circumstances. The commentators have different qualifications, abilities, knowledge, experience and perspectives, put different degrees of effort into responses, and communicate with different degrees of skill. Reader beware! Thank you also for illustrating that this medium offers latitude for passion, humor, irony, metaphor, circumlocution and dramatic flair in good faith efforts make reading interesting or to advance ideas or debates. I appreciate your contributions, both in substance and in style.

Mr. Maldonado: Amounts that should not have been contributed to the plan are not reversions. If you don't like that theory, keep the amounts in the plan and credit them against contributions.

The contributions to the plan(s) might be an operational failure. No contribution should have been made to the extent the employee did not earn what what the contribution was based on. The correction is likely to recover quite a bit of the contributions. I am not suggesting "mistake of fact," but others might.

Giovanni, do you understand how plans that allow elective deferrals to everyone right away and employer funded contributions only after a year of sevice must be disaggregated in order for the plan to fit the safe harbor? The disaggregated potion that covers the participants with less than a year of service is not a safe harbor plan and must be tested. But it usually passes automaticlly because it has no HCEs. If you can't disaggregate, none of the plan can be safe harbor. That is what the passage means.

If you had a good plan document, the plan document would have terms to provide for appropriate imputed income and imputed service.

Literally it would be a problem, but the IRS has never made it an issue in the determination letter process even though the issue was in focus as a special amendment in connection with the determination. Our standard plan language also helps us get around the issue. All distributions are subject to delay until the amount can be determined. One can argue that pending a final determination letter, accounts may have to be adjusted to meet any IRS responses. No disagreement with your comment about the need to amend to change loan availability, although there are other ways to address loan restrictions if the plan is designed for it.

A plan can operate normally while waiting for a determination letter unless it has been amended to restrict distributions. In that case, the amendment controls. Distributions during the wait do not adversely affect the status of the plan as terminated. However, the plan does not want to be empty while waiting for the letter, so it is common to restrict distributions if participants otherwise have the right to get distributions, for example because of termination of employment. If most participants are not eligible for distribution pending receipt of the letter, there is no compelling reason to impose special restrictions. Loans are typically restricted, however.

Why does it matter in a 401(k) plan? Is the contribution from mid year on really in excess of the compensation from mid year on?

I think you should be careful about sticking your nose into John's business, even if his lawyer is an ass. No good deed goes unpunished. Did someone ask you for infomation relating to QDROs? If so, there is no harm in referring people to government publications without further comment on the value or validity of the publication. Follow Harwood's example.

Lots of confusion here. You need to get help on QDRO administration generally. I will adress only one point. The 18 month period is usually not an issue. It applies only to preserve amounts that would otherwise be paid to someone else pending a determination of qualification. A simple example: After the order is received, the participant terminates employment and is entitiled to a distribution. The participant asks for a lump sum distribution. The plan administrator has to evaluate how much the AP would get if the order is qualifed (which can be tricky, because that determination may be part of the reason for the delay in the first place) and hold back that amount from payment to the participant. The 18 month period starts then because the alternate payee would have received a distribution at the time of the distribution to the participant if the order had been determined at that time to be qualified. When the determination is made later, the amount held back is paid according to the determination. The 18 months is NOT a lot of things, including the measure of a "reasonable period" under IRC section 414(p)(6)(A)(ii).

The 401(a)(17) limit effectively says that you cannot take into account amounts in excess of the limit to allocate contributions. The regulations also require proration for periods of less than one year. Workin from those principles (not necesarily perfect application), I start from the proposition that you would prorate $200,000 to fit your compensation periods. Any amount in excess of the prorated amount for the period would be disregarded. That would apply first to the deferral election for the period and then to the match. Example: 26 periods with a limit of $7692 per period. If I elect deferral at a 4% rate, my deferral for the period is $308 and the match is then figured on that deferral amount and compensation of $7692. But $308 times 26 only gets me to $8008 rather than $12,000 so I need to elect more than 4% to get me to the maximum deferral for the year. Your pattern violates my proposition, so I would have to think much harder than I I am able right now if I were to try to give you an answer other than the system used by the TPA was faulty from the beginning. I am not saying that the system was faulty. I simply am not trying to apply what actually happened when what happened did not fit a design that I can understand and support. Perhaps other designs could work. I also think that pay period by pay period matches without an annual true up are rife with problems that people don't anticipate and I never recommend them. You have illustrated yet anouther way that the arrangement might result in an unsuspecting participant inadvertently failing to get the maximum match allowed by law despite making the maximum deferral.

You can provide for in service distributions of the profit sharing amounts in accordance with the rules for profit sharing plans, disregarding the special rules for elective deferrals under section 401(k). We have some guidance about the acceptable standards and you appear to be familiar with the guidance (e.g. the 2 year seasoning rule). I have seen age 40 approved by determination letter, but I would be uncomfortable with an attempt to get around the standard 2 year seasoning rule with the alternative of age 25 or or the alternative of vesting. If vesting does not occur until after 2 years, that would probably work, but special accelerated vesting is too aggressive for me. You could try something aggressive and see if you can get a letter. You are trying awfully hard to accomplish what seems to be an unimportant goal.

Not at the level of sophistication that is latent in the question. That is why I invited some consideration of what the question is really about. If someone has a simplistic concern that a participant can receive more pay than the 401(a) (17) limit and yet contributions don't stop at that point in the year, I don't want to talk about it and other threads cover the general point. If the question really is about the fine points of the period-by-period calculation, then more information would be very helpful to focus the discussion. That information includes what limit, if any is placed on the deferrral for the period and how it is calculated. By the way, I think there is an interesting question here and I don't think there is any authority to resolve the possible answers.