GMK

Since the participant died before her RBD, no RMD is required for the year in which she died. Starting with the year after the participant died, the beneficiary RMD rules will apply.

Not sure I understand the reasoning. Employees are paying premiums through the cafeteria plan for employer-provided coverage. At the end of the plan year (for both the cafeteria and health plan), they decide to go on Medicare. Don't they have a special enrollment period to go on Medicare when their employer-provided coverage ends, regardless of when during the year that happens? or am I missing something?

If the Braves aren't playing in Milwaukee County Stadium, and if an "All-Star" game can end in a tie, baseball's over. ... says the grumpy old man who needs to lighten up.

Human nature being what it is, you get high participation mainly by offering a health match. Doing auto enrollment with an opt-out, rather than an opt-in, helps, as does giving one-on-one pre-enrollment education about how the plan works. Fair enough, you can't always control the circumstances. But your attitude is your choice.

Hey, the States need money. And from the editorial desk, the just plain stupid part is loans from retirement plans.

For what it's worth, a few points that are not always presented clearly in articles about this are: When an article says that the participant "dies before distributions begin" (not on or before, by the way), it generally means before the participant's required beginning date (the April 1 of next year kind of thing). It does not matter whether the participant had or had not received payments from the plan. The definition of when distributions begin will be in your plan document (probably in the distributions section). The preemption of the death RMD rules take effect beginning with the calendar year after the year in which the participant dies. The participant's lifetime RMD rules govern until the end of the year in which the participant dies. If this means that if the participant would be required to take an RMD for the year in which the participant died, that RMD is to be paid to the beneficiary as soon as it would have had to be paid to the participant (by end of year or the next April 1, as applicable).

where "doing that" is giving the notice, yes?

Arrgh, the distribution calendar year, is it? That makes total sense, both for the first 4 years and the 5th year. Thank you very much. Tell them to give you a raise.

On page 4 of this article: http://www.davis-harman.com/pub.aspx?ID=VFdwWmVnPT0= is the statement that: "If the 5-year rule applies, no amount is treated as an RMD that is ineligible for direct rollover for the first four years after the employee’s death, and no amount is eligible for rollover on or after January 1 of the fifth calendar year following the year of the employee’s death." Do you know of any cite or reference that confirms that this is true? Thanks.

^careful, Tom. This could give pirates a bad name.

who doesn't?

^ it's about time. At last I can check pirate doughnuts off my bucket list, assuming the local KrKr offers them.

Do either of these work as the icon? or

I would send the notice to everyone, just to avoid later questions. I suspect the notice has to be sent to everyone if there's any possibility that persons in an excluded group could switch (or be switched) in the future to an included group.

Like the $10,000 valuation for a leg in Mr. Poje's example, above, some pirate stuff can be pricy. If the pirate also has a hook, they easily could have cost the pirate an arm and a leg. But the earrings are only a buccaneer.

Something is missing here, maybe?

Do they last longer than the cheapo, solar powered lights I bought for my wife's flower bed? Aaarrrrg.

^which can be deemed to happen when they terminate unless they are entitled to an allocation of this year's contributions, but that doesn't delete them from the count of participants for the year, as far as I can tell.

Guess the battery in my calendar died. It still says it's only Sept. 16. but that is a good one, Tom ... aye, matey ... hee hee hee. Wonder if I'll remember it when I get there ... or if I'll remember anything.

For what reason(s)? just curious.

the toggle switch (if you're wondering) appears in the header of the "Reply to this topic" box after you click to enter your reply. edit: typo

Thanks, Bird. Today, I found this discussion of trusts as beneficiaries: http://www.ctnaela.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Part-III-TrustAsBene2013.pdf What I've found so far is that the plan pays the trust, and the trust pays the trust beneficiaries (although at one point the possibility is mentioned that an arrangement might possible in which the plan pays the "separated account" beneficiaries directly ... have to read more). For a See-Through trust, the beneficiaries can separate the account into individual accounts for almost all purposes, including RMD amount, but never for determining the applicable distribution period (ADP). The ADP is determined when the participant dies, and you're stuck with it. Who gets counted as a beneficiary, and whether or not a non-person trust beneficiary can be excluded, can be very complicated. Messy business. No question that if any of our participants who have named a trust as a beneficiary dies, step one is to consult with our ERISA attorney.

anyone?

If a participant in a qualified plan dies, and the participant's named beneficiary is a See-Through trust, then the persons who are beneficiaries of the trust are treated as designated beneficiaries of the participant. Does this include that the beneficiaries can split the trust account into their own separate personal accounts (if they do it by the end of the year after the year of the participant's death)? Until the trust account is separated, does the plan pay the benefit, including RMD, to the trust or to the persons? Before the trust account is separated, do you use the shortest life expectancy of the beneficiary persons to determine the RMD, or do you treat it as separate benefits and calculate an RMD for each as if they were the participant's named beneficiaries? Thanks for answers. I'm just trying to understand how this works before I need to know how it works.

as before, for example, http://www.taxresourcegroup.com/library/memo/1251.html