K2retire

When my father was divorcing from his 3rd wife 10-15 years ago, Louisiana required that a couple be legally separated for 2 years (with no cohabitation during that period) before they would grant a divorce. I don't know if that is still the case, but her attorney should be able to answer that question very quickly.

FWIW the DOL has recently hire a bunch more enforcement folks and bonds are one of the things they're looking at. I've heard of fines being significant, but don't recall the details.

I apologize, PMacduff - I wrote that quickly. I realize that you were being funny and I laughed to myself when I read it. Sorry for being so dry. I honestly don't think that a QPA holder should be automatically awarded an ERPA because ERPA is designed to certify you for a different purpose. I just as strongly don't believe that ERPA holders should be awarded a QPA primarily because of the coverage of the DB material - or lack thereof. I wouldn't have an issue with an ERPA being automatically awarded the QKA designation because the QKA is lower level. Have a great holiday weekend. I agreed that the ERPA designation should not automatically earn someone a QPA. I am furious that ASPPA has done that because it totally discounts the work of those of us who did pass the tests. In a few years one will need to ask every QPA if the earned it or not.

What tax ID # is the employer using on their W-2s?

I agree that it still doesn't sound like you're understanding the balance forward plan. I'm making up numbers for this illustration to see if it helps. At the moment, this participant has a balance of ($2,000). When the 2010 safe harbor contribution is made, her balance will increase by the amount of that contribution to something like ($1,500). At that point, she or the plan sponsor only needs to pay back the ($1,500) to make the plan whole. Once that happens, her balance is zero. There is nothing left to transfer to a forfeiture account.

Well that explains why I had never heard of it, since I didn't get into this business until a decade or so later than that!

It is unlikely that she will repay the overage. At this point she has a negative account balance. I would allocate the contribution as required, and see if it is enough to bring her account balance up to zero. You can then decide what else to do depending on the result.

We have a new client with a two step Integration formula up to 100% of the Taxable Wage Base. As the client was describing their contribution formula to me, it was clear that they were calculating it wrong. They have been allocating 6% to everyone, with an additional 6.2% on amounts above the taxable wage base. Their bundled service provider apparently never checked the calculations or provided any guidance on how it was supposed to be done. Looking at their allocations, I can verify that it has been done wrong for at least 3 years, so it's no longer eligible for SCP. I don't see anything in EPCRS that addresses how to fix an allocation that does not follow the terms of the document, or that exceeds the maximum allowable Integration percentage. Do they get to choose whether to take away the excess, or deposit more for those below the Integration level? Is there some other option that I'm not thinking of?

I haven't been able to find any reliable guidance on this question. If a plan uses prior year testing, and adopts a top paid group election in 2011 you end up with 3 groups of employees: HCEs in both 2010 and 2011, NHCEs in both years and those who were HCEs in 2010 but are not in 2011 due to the election. When the 2011 testing is done, you compare the 2011 HCE deferral rates to the 2010 NHCE deferral rates. Are the people who were HCEs in 2010, but now are not in 2011 ignored for the 2011 test because they were not in either group at the appropriate time? Or are the 2010 deferrals of those individuals added to the 2010 NHCE group? Since most of them are deferring at a high rate, I'd like to be able to add them to the NHCE group, but I wasn't sure if that was too aggressive.

You are correct -- only the plan sponsor is supposed to make contributions to the plan. It is also typical that recordkeepers will propose making the contribution directly rather than reimbursing the plan sponsor.

I agree that is how it SHOULD happen, but don't be surprised if that's not how the recordkeeper wants to do it.

The new plan should be setting it up using the same amortization schedule that was originally established. You just need to make a payment of $450 (or whatever the real numbers are) to get caught up and then resume the original payments.

Sounds like it might be easier to amend the document than to change the client's practices.

I haven't heard of this, but recently had a call from a bank client who insisted on amending their document to exclude the commissions paid to their mortgage people. I wonder how we can get more information on this seminar.

Theoretically you could manually review all of the prior 5500s. Not something I'd want to take on, but perhaps a good project for an intern?

Great-West says theirs is done, although I haven't had time to look at it yet.

And I did not mean to suggest that you should do otherwise or that I disagree with what you said!

In a perfect world that would be true. Where I work, the fiduciary usually wants its financial adviser and/or TPA to tell them what to do so that they don't have to develop a relationship with an ERISA attorney. After all "that's what we pay you for".

They didn't exactly accept it -- you did get the processing stopped message indicating a problem.

If, at the time of hire, the employee provided proof of identity that included a date of birth, what documentation has now been provided to verify the older age? What responsibility do the plan fiduciaries have to determine which documents are fraudulent and which are accurate?

So as far as EFAST is concerned, the return was not signed.

I've never heard of a company accepting money if you haven't completed their forms.

Please share whatever you learn.

Does the record keeping agreement have any provisions relating to confidentiality?

Let's suppose there weren't any deferrals between January and June, and the only deferrals were made at the later half of 2010. You could then give a $49,000 Profit Sharing and the $5,500 in deferrals will become catchup. You're now saying that the individual could then defer an additional $22,000 between July and December of 2011, because that $5,500 catchup would've applied to 2010. You see how inconsistent that is? Because it was deferred in 2010 doesn't make it a 2010 catchup. It is a catchup based on the limit that was exceeded; and 415 is a year end limit. Let's get the usual suspects on this one; KevinC, Sieve, or Poje to chime in How could money deferred in 2010 be a catch up contribution for any year other than 2010?