hr for me

Actually I think you are reading it fairly...neither want to be boxed in nor does the employer want to run afoul of laws like FMLA/ADA and state-level versions of the same. But in the end the employer also has to make sure they are being consistent with whatever policy they choose and to make sure their policy falls correctly on what their plan/insurer's document states.

just still brainstorming a bit... Is there any reason the participant can't leave the money in the old account as it is perfectly legal to have more than one HSA account (subject to annual contribution limits) if they don't want to pay the $20 to combine their HSA accounts? And the participant owns the account not the employer. However, if the employer had been paying the monthly fee, it might be that the employee would now get charged that out of their account. Then the participant can put in personal funds (But not through payroll pretax) or use the account down to a $0 and then it will get closed. (btdt as my DH seems to change jobs/employers and benefits often and there have been times where we have had multiple HSA accounts) The new employer/payroll contributions would go to the new HSA account. Just as if a new employee had an old HSA with another employer and then got a new one from a new employer. I don't see how the employer can require the transfer but can see how they can switch providers and open a new account. Then the employee can chose how they deal with multiple HSAs

what costs are you describing? The only HSA participant fees I have ever encountered are a small monthly account fee of $0-2 per participant that is charged to the participant's HSA account as long as there is a balance. At my company we have stayed with the same provider and have never been charged any entry/change fee but my employees do pay a very small monthly fee for the account. My husband's companies (on this third employer in 3 months due to buyouts and sales of divisions) have never charged any type of change fee to the employee and we have gone from HSABank to Wells Fargo to Optum and others in between years. I would have to ask it "change fees" are normal and reasonable plan expenses especially if the employer is changing regularly and the employee has no say in the matter of who the HSA account is with and whether they want to change. (I liken this to 401k providers where the plan sponsor should be reviewing reasonable and necessary expenses but again I have never seen a plan sponsor charge back transition fees/cost to the participants)

Your knowledge is from a third party (the accountant) -- is he an actual employee of the business? Who signs the 941/940 federal payroll tax reports? I would think he (and they) have much more liability than you do. However, I wonder if some type of statement that they provide with the data about it "being accurate and true to their knowledge" would provide you any more protection? Or would that just prove that you had your suspicions? But someone can have another FT job and still work in the family business from home, consulting, etc. So not totally ruling out the fact that they might actually do some work at least... Our company has a few of these types of employees that one would never see "at work" but work from home, etc.

to me, accrued means including earnings during that time period. Hopefully you don't have any loan repayments to be worried about.

Not really different schedules for the same plan, but I do think that different clients could have differing language -- I've seen forms that say "each future paycheck" which would include this special payroll run and ones that say " per pay period" and in that case, one would have to define pay period if this were a special one (weekly one outside of the normal biweekly one). If this is truly 1/2 a pay period payroll, I think one could argue under the "per pay period" that 1/2 the flat dollar amount should have been taken. The % method would take care of itself because the wages would also be 1/2. Don't know how to argue the loan payments without seeing the payment documentation. But I do think in the end there should have been some type of deferral at least if this was regular wages, not sure about loan payments. I haven't done loans since back in the day of absolute amortization schedules where you couldn't pay anything but the payment.

What does the deferral form state about flat deferral elections? Does it state it will come out of every check -- or what frequency? Same for your loan documents. What frequency does it state that loan payments will be withdrawn? I think you need to refer back to those and the plan document to look at frequency of flat amounts.

I found "unread content" after I posted and it showed me your new post

I was able to get in, but had to remember my old password. Luckily when I signed up for a lot of HR/payroll forums, I kept a pretty standard one throughout. However, the "find new posts" isn't working, but it wasn't working for me at the end of last week either. I really like the ability to just see new posts....

This is one time where you need to have payroll review and change the order of deductions. Think about how you would handle a wage garnishment on one of these employees. By law, it has to come out in a certain order. I doubt any of the employees want to lose other benefits due to nonpayment so they can defer to the 401k. And I agree with amending the plan if it truly says they can defer 100% of gross pay -- because even then you are going to have FICA issues.

Why wouldn't you do it the same way that you do a black out period? You do have to notify employees, but deferrals/match still happen, but just aren't posted until such time as the system is up. It used to be that black out periods were weeks and now they are more like days and no plan documents had to be amended. So I would still take the deferrals and do what ETA suggests.

Maybe I am weird and a bit off topic -->> I also would put into place a much more timely reconciliation (because it sounds like you are waiting until end of year to do a single reconciliation...forgive me if I am misreading that)-- that is checking each month or so to make sure the deposit to the recordkeeper/administrator matched what came out of your bank account. We are a pretty small company and our controller reconciles each month for all transactions. When you found the "bank error" in 2014, did you ever contact the bank about it? Not a great assumption at that point to not get to the bottom of it and just blame it on an unknown error. Does the provider not give at least annual reports that would have shown this unallocated cash from 2010 to sometime in 2015? While I do agree this is a provider error, I think that it could have been caught much sooner if someone internally had been auditing/reconciling in a more timely manner. You obviously know now that a 401k/payroll setup is not an automatic and forget about it kind of benefit. Someone internally at your company should be responsible for the ongoing admin of the plan, even if the provider claims they do 100% of the work. In the end the employer is 100% responsible for everything that happens in the plan.

agree that the participant should NOT write a personal check because the QDRO directing the plan to pay his percentage is still in effect. She could end up owing that amount again from her retirement plan. Not a smart move. Honestly she should have agreed to pay him that amount out of other assets prior to the QDRO. Now she has the expense of getting it changed or allowing the distribution out of her retirement funds and putting her cash in non-retirement vehicles (or upping her current deferrals as much as she can over time)

Agree with the issue of SS timing..it's not generally a quick process. I could see where it could be 1 factor of proof in a multitude of evidence, but shouldn't be the only thing relied upon. Unless like ESOP Guy said you want to have to go back and revise 1099Rs and possibly other benefits later.

Thanks for your hard work keeping this board up and running. It truly is very helpful to many!

I know that the larger HR consulting firms like Mercer have departments/groups that just handle NQ plans (worked on some back in the day). Don't know if they still do the recordkeeping themselves though or if it is just outsourced to smaller providers. But it looks like at least the Louisville and Chicago offices handle NQ plans.

Ouch! Were they able to get the prior provider to pay that bill? But I have to wonder how much of this falls back onto the internal HR/payroll employees and their own lack of training. No good HR/payroll person relies fully on the provider to calculate correctly without audits, checking, etc. But I know way too many who just assume its correct or don't have the knowledge/education to do so. Are you in a position to review/audit their current processes and offer process management advice? Back in the day, I did a few audits of 401k plans and other HR processes and it truly sounds like they could use it from someone outside of the IRS/DOL!

I'd create new for many reasons. Agree with Bill that there could be all sorts of created issues.

agree that there is no such thing as a "1099 employee" -- either a w-2 employee or an independent contractor getting a 1099. And agree that those laws need to be followed carefully. If his job isn't truly changing and he's not going to also work in competing positions/doing work for other clients, it's going to be hard to argue that he shouldn't be classified as an employee.

I would agree with the payroll company IF they are also using the same method on termination -- that is if there is a last check that deferrals are coming out based on the wages paid after the termination date (which rarely happens). Such that the decision is equal on both ends. Can you make that argument? That said, I think most plans start as of the first check after eligibility but do have to take into account processing time -- so like you said there could still be a donut hole if the eligibility falls within the 5-6 processing days after pay period close but prior to paydate. I would say they need to pick a specific choice and always do it the same way for all employees and NOT have inconsistencies. That's much easier to explain to an auditor than multiple ways with lots of IFs.

Not that I have found. I do agree that if the employer has set a precedent of continuing benefits for someone out on a non-ADA leave, that they would need to do so for an ADA (or even extended non -FMLA protected non-ADA) leave. But in the end, the purpose of ADA was to accommodate so the employee could work with reasonable accommodation. While the EEOC guidance wants to greatly expand the benefits, in the end the law of protecting benefits rests in FMLA's 12 weeks and then any state protected leave programs. If a person is defined as disabled under ADA, I would suspect that 99.9% of the time their timeoff would fall under FMLA (although there are some situations that I can't think of right now that might not). I haven't found a strict legal obligation as long as you are consistently moving employees onto COBRA when they run out of FMLA-protected benefits. Unfortunately sometimes executives want to make a special deal for one or two and don't realize that they open up a precedent-setting policy that could later get them into trouble.

I am not going crazy! I started answering this, tried to embed a link, had to close the window and when I came back I found the same question with 403(b) instead. I bet as I said on the other post that she found that info at 401khelpcenter.com But I am not so sure she is interpreting it correctly to say she doesn't NEED it, just what happens if she doesn't have it. And they don't cite a source.

I found some information on 401khelpcenter.com (search spousal waiver and the article is Retirement Beneficiary Designations), which is how I originally read the topic title that discusses the 50% beneficiary information but it is for 401k's. Not sure whether the same applies to your 403b, but I could see her searching and finding this article as I found it pretty easily. I'd definitely ask for her "found on line" source! I wish I could link directly, but I've never been able to do that....

Even with an online portal, I would hope that someone would be reviewing/approving any changes (which in itself takes a little time). I would hope the employee isn't truly changing a payroll record directly with no HR/payroll input/approval. Can you just imagine the nightmare if an employee changed back and forth multiple times over a payroll cycle? One would hope the auditor would be questioning the ease and possible errors because of this rather than saying it should be allowed!

Sorry if I am a bit off-topic --> The payroll company allows (and calculates) Mid pay period changes ? That's a new one for me. I've always seen it change the beginning of the next payroll period. I can't imagine trying to audit deferral changes mid pay period and having to know compensation by the day. That sounds like a nightmare honestly! Back in my 401k recordkeeping days, changes were sent once per payroll to the payroll system from the capturing system (forms, online, etc) and then we received the feed of deferrals each pay period and could easily use the deferral % times the compensation to make sure the deferral had been calculated correctly by payroll. And even now with processing payroll for 11 years, I can't say I've heard of a payroll system doing so mid pay period, but I could just be out of the loop since we've used the same payroll system all 11 years. How often does the deferral change system feed to payroll? Daily? Or is it all tied into the same system? Do you mind telling me the payroll provider/system? I understand if you can't....But it does make me curious since I have been on both sides of this situation (HR/benefits consulting on 401ks and payroll)