PAL

I am hearing from our auditors that based on ASU 2015-12, for fixed income investments like stable value CCT's, contract value will be the new fair value on the plans financial statements. However, at this point I am unclear as to what value we would report on the 5500 for those funds: Fair value calculated based on the value of the underlying assets which is what we've been reporting or would we go back to treating contract value as fair value. Thoughts?

I had a client just recently get back an extension approval with no PN for an extension that was sent on 11/30/2015 - I guess they are VERY behind in getting these processed. (note: the return was filed back in February prior to the approved 2/16/2016 extended due date)

Thanks!

Plan Administrators are only eligible to use DFVCP if they "have not been notified in writing by the Department of a failure to file a timely annual report under Title I of ERISA" so I'm thinking that they would not be eligible to use DVFCP. This is a big change from having the IRS send that first notice! Can you tell us when their 2013 Form 5500 was due as well as the date of the DOL letter/e-mail? I'm interested in seeing how long they waited to send the notice.

Can HCE's be excluded from SEP participation? What about excluding HCE's that are not there on the last day of the plan year from receiving an allocation?

Are you having the plan sponsor sign the extensions or are you doing it on their behalf?

When completing a Form 5558 for a calendar year end plan, are you using 10/17 as the due date since 10/15 falls on a weekend? Relius has is reporting that the IRS is rejecting these requests for extension because the extension period is 2 days longer than the 2 1/2 months permitted. http://www.relius.net/Support/rgfproductnews.aspx?ID=264 I've been doing 5500 for a long time and I don't remember having this issue n the past although I think it's been a while since the extended due date was on a weekend. I'd like to hear back on what date others are using. Thanks. PAL

I loved this... http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11544914/p...tration-meeting PAL

Well, while I'm waiting for the forms (to be issued"shortly"), I'm having an issue with the SSA sending incorrect notices out to participants. I believe it has to do with the plan name changing. Now people seem to be getting duplicate notices. Has anyone had success in getting a name/phone number of someone in the department at SSA who is responsible for sending these notices? PAL

I am in total agreement. Back on July 30th, I had a 5500 that took 12 hours to get processed. Right then I knew there was a problem - how could they not know and why weren't the additional servers brought in then? When I finally got a call back from customer service on that, they indicated that it was transmission issues at the DOL which we now know was totally untrue. By Wednesday of this week, Relius Web Client had almost come to a complete halt. Nothng loaded correctly, attachments got dropped, at one point it was taking up to an hour to get one plan with attachments loaded validated and sent to client for signature. So great! Thanks for the additional servers but by 3pm on Friday, we had already spent more time trying to get some of these 5500s loaded onto Web Client then we did in preparing the form and our client were totally frustrated, pissed and iritated.

Well if the only problem you're having is with the PIN which can be cut and pasted you’re lucky. I guess you haven't had any of your clients login to Web Client and be pushed from your company branded pages to another company's branded pages where the filings that you produced are sitting with the ones that the other company produced. What about validation errors? The type mismatch 13 error on the Schedule H "can be ignored", who knows what the plan/sponsor name doesn't match 5500 is all about, a missing organization code on the schedule a doesn't produce an error, and schedule a's with multiple pages of commissions may not total correctly (which also doesn't produce an error). Then, the best one yet: if Relius is timing out when trying to transmit the forms to DOL, they set it aside and re-transmit at 2am -3am THE NEXT MORNING. So, for example, filings we submitted at around 3pm on 7/30 were not received by DOL until sometime on 7/31. Well, that was okay for what we filed yesterday but that tells me that anything submitted on Monday, may not be transmitted to the DOL until early Tuesday morning. OOPS! They would be considered late wouldn't they? Tom - are you having the submission timing issue with your software?

I just found this on a plan I was reviewing. Relius keeps the 3E code during the carryforward process so if it is a small plan filer that is moving to a SF, you need to check and change that code otherwise, you're listing it as a one person plan. I would agree that the plans filed with the incorrect code will need to be amended - hope you didn't do to many...

Thanks for the checklist. I'm a Relius user as well. How's it working for you because it's driving me crazy. We are using the Web Client and seem to be able to get H&W plans filed (sometimes) but are just working on 5500 that have attachments. When there is an issue or we have a questions, we get absolutely no response. I'm talking about having a incident reports open for over 3 weeks. Does the IFile work okay? PAL

I've been doing 5500s for more years than I'll admit and I would have agreed with the link you provided. However, this is from the Georgia Department of Revenue FAQ'a: https://etax.dor.ga.gov/inctax/webfaq/faq-exp.aspx#7 Q. Our pension plan/employee benefit plan is filing form 5500 with the IRS. What do we file with Georgia? A. File a copy of the federal Form 5500. Georgia does not have an equivalent Form 5500. For plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2009, the federal Form 5500 and its schedules must be filed electronically under the computerized ERISA Filing Acceptance System. The Department of Revenue does not currently accept these electronically filed returns. Therefore, file a hard copy of the electronically filed federal form with Georgia. I spoke with the state of Georgia Department of Revenue and they insist that the 5500 must also be filed with them.

Georgia requires that each year, a copy of the Form 5500 be filed with the Georgia Department of Revenue. I was unaware of this requirement which, they tell me has been in place for many years. They also said that if a plan has not complied with this requirement, they need to send in at least the last three year worth of 5500 to the DOR. Is anyone familar with this requirement? Are there any other states that have a similar requirement? PAL

I try to remain upbeat when after days of testing, retesting and help desk communication we find out the issues are with the software and will be "fixed with the next release". With that said, the latest release has done me in! We can no longer print 2008 Form 5500s. Last week we could, this week we can't. So, for amended form we did last week that needs one small change - we appear to be out of luck. I guess we could shift everything to the new forms & electronic filing but we've seen errors in that testing as well. (question: how could the software company's internal testing miss a validation warning that says 1 plus 1 does not equal 2?) I don't remember the change to barcoded forms being such an issue but perhaps I'm wrong. However, there is one thing we now know for sure - EFAST2 Certification does not mean that the software actually works... PAL

Thanks. Yes - I had seen the reference in the "Critical Priorities…With Monika Templeman Today’s Discussion: Priorities for the Upcoming Year" but couldn't find anything else on it such as a sample of the questionnaire or support for the March rollout. I thought maybe I had missed something else that was published.

In March 2009, a company preformed the 2008 ADP test and distributed excess contributions. Later in 2009, it was determined that some of the data used for the testing was incorrect. The data was fixed and the ADP test was rerun resulting in additional excess contributions that needed to be distributed in order to pass the test. Unfortunately, the plan’s recordkeeper did not make the additional distributions until January 2010. It was my understanding that because the distributions to correct the test failure were not made within 12 months following the end of the plan year, the test failure could be corrected with SCP using either a QNEC or the One-to-One method. However, the plan’s recordkeeper has come back and said that since the plan did test and make initial corrections in a timely fashion, the additional excess contributions due to the revised test data can be corrected under SCP by distributing excess amounts to participants within two years and no additional contribution is required. Are they correct? Thanks. PAL

A company I work with recently received an e-mail from another firm stating that the IRS had announced it's plans to send a questionaire to a cross-section of retirement plan sponsors in March 2010. The purpose of the questionnaire is to guage the level of compliance and determine which compliance issues need to be addressed. I can't seem to find this announcement anywhere. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance for you help. PAL

I'm interested in knowing if you reported the change on page 2 of the 5500 (I'm thinking that is what you mean when you say it was changed in the "entity control section"). The reason I ask is that for a period of time, the IRS had been disregarding the information on page 2 and were advising people that they needed to final a final Form 5500 for the original entity with a new Form 5500 for the new entity. I thought the IRS stopped doing this a while back but if you did provide the information on page 2 of the 5500, my guess is that they are not looking at that page 2 again.

I am interested in finding out how successful people are at getting the late penalty waived (in part or in all) based on reasonable cause. My experience in dealing with delinquent filings is by submitting through the DFVCP. I am beginning to wonder if that is a waste of money if the IRS routinely waives the penalty when a reasonable cause letter is sent in. It would be great if others out there who have submitted a reasonable cause letter could reply with what their experience has been. Thanks.

Use codes 4R and 4S for item 8b on page 2 of the Form 5500: 4R - Unfunded, fully insured, or combination unfunded/insured welfare plan that will not file a Form 5500 for next plan year pursuant to 29 CFR 2520.104-20. 4S - Unfunded, fully insured, or combination unfunded/insured welfare plan that stopped filing Form 5500s in an earlier plan year pursuant to 29 CFR 2520.104-20.

I'm guessing this is for a 401(b) and I believe the DFVCP can be used if they have only received notice from the IRS (and not the DOL). From the DFVCP fact sheet: Small plans sponsored by certain tax-exempt organizations. A special “per plan” cap of $750 applies to a small plan sponsored by an organization that is tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code §501©(3). The $750 limitation applies regardless of the number of late annual reports filed for the plan at the same time. It is not available, however, if as of the date the plan files under the DFVCP, there is a delinquent annual report for a plan year during which the plan was a large plan.

Well you have to report the C amount (benefit preciously reports under other plan being transferred in) this year but what I'm unsure of is if this will actually mess up SSA records or will the participant just receive two notices from the same plan with different amounts. As a result, I might be inclined to do the C information this year and do the B information next year.

I believe you are correct in that you are looking at a Form 5330 for 06, 07, 08 & 09 and the initial tax will be 15% of the "amount involved oe "interest" calculated. What I'm comfused about is the second tier tax of 100% - item 3b on the Form 5330. I your case the initial tax under 4973a is 15% of 133.07 (20.52 plus 112.55) or 19.96. Under 4973(b), there is a second tier tax of 100% of the amount involved for failure to correct. So, I'm thinking that in 06, you'd have the $19.96 but then in 07, you'd have 19.96 for item 3a and 133.07 for item 3b. However, I am totaly confused by this so I'm not sure if this is correct. Can anyone think of a reason why the second tier tax does not apply?