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What's the best way to handle a plan when a partner leaves and is not 100% vested? Should the vesting schedule be amended to 100% immediate or settle outside of plan (tax consequences not good)?

If you are issuing a 204(h) notice for a db plan, must the notice state what the benefit formula was prior to the freeze or can you merely state that no further benefits will accrue?

No, he attained age 70 1/2 in 2002. His RMD is 4/1/04 because that is the April 1 following retirement.

I have a non 5% owner who attained age 70 1/2 in 2002. He terminated in August 2003 and rolled all of his money to an IRA. Should he have received a minimum distribution from the 401(k) plan even though his RBD is 4/1/04? What is the remedy?

Would it be reasonable for an ESOP sponsor to have signed a certification to adopt a volume submitter plan?

Our general practice is to discontinue all services for a client once they are more than 90 days behind on paying their bill to us. If we turn off the Web and VRU access should a blackout notice be issued to the participants?

It's intended to do what a dc plan would do - provide an accrual (contribution) and give earnings on the prior account balance (actuarial eqivalence of prior years accrued benefit.

Has anyone ever seen any document language which provided for the sum of continued accruals plus actuarial increases vs the greater of the two? Would this be treated as a separate benefit structure and require (a)(4) testing?

Suppose a participant has an accrued benefit of $100/mo as of 1/1/03 when lump sums are eliminated. When the participant terminates 5 years later (1/1/08), may the plan offer him the choice of receiving the lump sum value of the $100 protected benefit or his accrued benefit as of 1/1/08? Or must you offer the lump sum value of the $100 plus any accruals after 1/1/03 as an annuity?

If you have a non-electing church db plan, can you eliminate lump sum as an option without 411(d)(6) protection?

In a DB plan, if the death benefit is defined as the pvab must you pay at 417(e) rates or can you define the pvab for death benefit purposes as the actuarial equivalence?

If an employer has a significant rate increase at policy renewal midyear, can an employee drop health coverage and therefore prospectively change the cafeteria health election on a prospective basis?

A 2% top heavy minimum was provided in the DB plan through 2001. Effective 1/1/02 the mininum was changed to 2% offset by any contributions under the DC plan. The DB plan was subsequently frozen on 1/15/02. Assuming there are no 411(d)(6) issues, is the DC plan treated as a single plan since no one is benefitting under the DB and thus can give a 3% TH minimum?

If you have a frozen DB plan, is the top heavy requirement in the DC plan 3% or 5%?

Thanks for refreshing my memory. It had been awhile since I had gone through the mechanics of the numbers. Everything seems to be fine.

I am trying to check the results in Relius for a plan that I am testing at Social Security Retirement Age with permitted disparity. I thought you had to use the factors from 401(l) adjusted for SSRA (i.e. .75, .7, .65). Relius tells me that because I am testing at SSRA, all participants should have a factor of .75. (That's what the system is doing) Is this correct?

I understand that in an ESOP that contains nonpublicly traded securities, a put option must be granted to the participants. Must this language be in the plan document?

If you have an existing profit sharing plan that has a 401(k) feature that has never been used, can you add a Safe Harbor feature midyear concurrent with implementing the salary deferrals. Is this stretching too far?

If you have a participant directed plan that has 100% its assets in qualifying assets and quarterly statements are issued by the TPA, is additional disclosure required? Since the statements are not provided to the participant by a regulated financial institution do you need to list the Financial Institution and asset values in the SAR?

If you have participant loans in a 401(k) plan who do you report on the Summary of the Annual Report as the financial institution holding the loans? The employer is the Trustee. All other funds are custodial accounts at various mutual fund houses.

I actually asked Corbel about this and was told that it can't be done at this time. It would be very helpful in analyzing plans and completing RFPS and questionnaires.

An employer pays a dividend in stock to a leveraged KSOP. The dividend attributable to allocated shares is allocated to the participant's account balances. What about the dividend attributable to the encumbered shares? I understand that if the dividend were paid in cash, it could be used to service the loan or pay expenses. Should this stock dividend be treated as a net gain to the trust and allocated to all participants based on total account balances?

We have several 401(k) plans that have a 500 hour requirement for allocation purposes. The EGTRRA amendment was adopted in December, 2002. I understand that for purposes of the allocation, we must limit compensation to $170,000 in order to avoid 411(d)(6) issues but for discrimination testing purposes can we use $200,000?

Do you need a good faith amendment signed by 12/31/02 in order to avoid the multiple use test for 2002?

I have a SIMPLE 401(k) plan on a standardized prototype document. The current document provisions state that non-elective contributions are not allowed. Could the employer revoke his SIMPLE election prior to 12/31, subject the plan to 401(k) testing and make a non-election contribution under any allocation form he chooses? The plan would be amended to provide for an age weighted or integrated allocation? It would seem that since non-elective contributions were not allowed, this would prevent any problems with anti-cutback because of the 500 hour/last day rule.