IRA

What if the corrective contribution (including earnings) is less than $75, is less than the cost of distribution, and the participant has terminated and taken a full distribution. What do you with the $75 that you have to put in the plan but don't have to distribute?

You advice should be not to throw good money after bad.

If you rob a bank and the next week pay it back, should you be prosecuted? If so, then why wouldn't a fiduciary of the bank be prosecuted? And to answer your question, I have seen many fiduciaries pay what they owe and still be prosecuted. In fact, everyone who gets prosecuted pays it back if they have the funds to pay it. One last point. Did he lie on the 5500? That will get you every time.

That's a rhetorical question, right?I'm not sure how I got here, but it's too disconcerting to think about. In any case, to everyone, Happy Holidays. No its a question that is ignored in the employee benefits community. Fulfilling the duties of a plan fiduciary/trustee is time consuming and filled with unexpected risks. There are too many ways to be be blindsided or be found liable for another person's illegal activities. A few years a financial advisor was a fiduciary to a qualified plan for the purposes of investing plan assets. However the plan admin/trustee was siphoning off assets by making false entries. After the trustee took off with the assets the plan sued the financial advisor as a co fiduciary even though the advisor did not have any involvement in plan administration. The court found the advisor liable as a co fiduciary because the advisor received the monthly statements of the plan assets and did not conduct due dilligence to review their accuracy. Now why would any one want to be a trustee or fiduciary? Sounds like the advisor had the wrong attorney in court.

The subpoena is preempted by ERISA. If you are pressed, make sure you go before the judge and tell her she has no authority over you because you are governed by ERISA. Use these words: "Judge, you have no authority over me. You have no jurisdiction. ERISA preempts anything you do with respect to the plan." Then you'll get your answer. You may, however, have to repeat the same thing to the bailiff as he takes you to jail. If that doesn't work, scream it through the bars at the sheriff or the guard on duty. Keep doing this until it works. Don't let them get you.

David, Yes, the plan document.

Does anyone have an electronic copy of the US Airways plan that was lodged with the clerk of the Supreme Court? I would like to see it.

The answer will implicate the application of the Federal Arbitration Act. You should probably ask your plan's counsel.

Thanks John. So have you had that happen to a client of yours? How long did it take?

For the MPPP, the trustee should be the owner of the account. The Bank probably won't like to see that the acount is for a qualified plan if anyone else owns the account.

Has anyone had an employer client have one plan audited, and then have the audit expanded to other plans of the same employer? I am wondering how long it might take for the IRS/IRS agent to place the other plans under audit now that he has found defects in the first plan?

I was very happy with the FTWilliam documents, but I only use them for one-offs, e.g., one plan at a time. I had to revise it to get it up to snuff as I see the law, but the same applies to every protototype/mass submittor document out there. Except for volume submittors drafted by law firms, none of them are any good, at least not the ones I've seen. And I've seen more than fifty different documents. This one was better or as good as any other MS on the market.

Thank you for your thoughts. Let me ask it another way. Does anyone tell participants in their open enrollment materials that the employer does not monitor the limit?

Does anyone have any thoughts?

If an employer establishes a salary-reduction HSA with employee contributions made through a cafeteria plan, and no employer funded contributions, should the employer monitor the employee's HSA maximum limit? If so, how does the employer know about the spouse's contributions?

That is it. 401 F.3d 847. Thanks.

A few years back, sometime from 2004 to maybe 2009, there was a case where a plan - and I believe it was a multiemployer plan - had a COB provision that provided the plan would be secondary for claims in excess of $1,000 if the participant was also covered under another plan. I believe the case was in Minn. or Michigan, but I'm not sure of that. Does anyone by chance know the name of that case?

Did you hear the one about the husband who went with his wife who was shopping for a swimsuit? She asked, "Should I get a two-piece bikini or an all-in-one?" He responded, "You better get a two-piece, because you'll never fit it all in one." He too is still recovering from his injuries.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the BenefitsLink newsletter is starting to creep a little into the realm of a political bias?

Yea, this definitely imposes a risk on the plan sponsor and the plan administrator, particularly in view of the recent case of Amara. I would not recommend it. I could see a table of contents that allows the participant to click on each link. But not something like this.

Are you serioius when you say you agree? Or were you joking back?

Per Rev. Proc. 2008-50, you don't have to make corrective distributions of $75 or less if the cost is more than the distribution. But Rev. Proc. 2008-50 says further that this rule does not apply to corrective contributions. So if you're corrective contribution for one participant is less than $75, do you have to make it? If so, what do you do? Allocate it to the other employees' accounts or use it to pay plan expenses (if you can) or something like that?

I'm a little confused. Are they just posting it on the intranet or sending out the links, such as through an e-mail? If just posting on the intranet, read the preamble to the final regs. If you do, you will see you can't just post it on your intranet. You have to do more than that. Again, you can't just post it on your intranet. You can't just post it on your intranet. You can't just post it on your intranet. You can't just post it on your intranet. I don't care how many companies do it, you can't just post it on your intranet. At least not yet.

As part of our application for a determination letter on a pretty standard 401(k) plan, we received a letter from the IRS that said the initial review has been completed and the file forwarded to Quality Assurance staff for review. I have never seen this before. Does anyone have insight on why this is happening to us now?

Someone told me that after the PPA we no longer have to provide security to a plan if a plan amendment results in underfunding. Is that true? That doesn't make sense. So can we now amend our plan without worrying about having to provide the plan with any security no matter how much the amendment causes the plan to be underfunded?