K2retire

Our regulatory compliance staff believes it is possible, and designed our PPA software updates to indentify specific individuals as EACA, QACA or neither. What I can't imagine is why anyone would want to create that particular administration nightmare.

And that is as it should be!

Larry, what if the plan calls for all distribution fees (hardship or otherwise) to be deducted from the particpant's account?

Regardless of which order you or the recordkeeper believes is the "best practice" you are obliged to follow the terms of the document. So unless you are contemplating amending the document, the best practice argument is irrelevant.

Since the lost earnings calculation is dependent upon the date that the deposits were actually made, I agree. But both must be done eventually.

Tom, where have you read that? We regularly limit deferral election changes to quarterly or even semi-annual. But we do allow people to stop deferrals at any time, even if there are other limits on changes.

As in repetitious and redundant?

Isn't there are rule about it being readable? 6 point type would negate that possibility for most of us!

And lost earnings.

Deferrals cannot be deposited to the plan before the date of the paycheck from which they were withheld. So, a deposit in January could not be for a deferral from a payroll in July.

The legal concept that an employer might be a separate entity from its owner, and a plan is definitely a separate entity from the business or the businss owner is a difficult one for many people to grasp. (especially as they are grieving) If your business owner was a sole proprietor, and the same individual that you mentioned as the trustee, then the individuals handling the estate are probably authorized to act on behalf of the business. That does not automatically give them authority to act on behalf of the plan. The attorney for the estate should be able to assist with these issues to the satisfaction of the investment company.

The HCEs can be excluded if that's what the document calls for, but not if the document says everyone receives the safe harbor match. The notice should reflect what the document says.

I don't see that item on my Corbel document checklist. Which document version do you see that on? It's the PPD language type, version 1.0.

Did you explain to them that this prohibited transaction will need to be reported on their 5500?

Vanguard is not flexible, and their people have given me absolutely incorrect answers. They did not notify me when I needed to begin preparing a 5500 EZ or provide any assistance with it. They told me at the time of the GUST restatement that it was not legal to restate a MPPP into a PSP. With the EGTRRA restatement, they are discontinuing their MPPP and not allowing rollover of MPP funds into their PSPs. But they do not charge for the document, and their funds are very good.

Ours has similar laugauge. Does anyone else think it's odd that they would have drafted that one document so much differently than their others regarding the effetive date, which would seem to be something that would be a standard answer regardless of plan type?

Tom, 50% of 6% is less than 4% in my world. Why wouldn't it meet the safe harbor requirements.

It is the PPD prototype.

Larry, What you describe is exactly what we were expecting, but we were told we must use 1-1-2002 for the effective date in the Corbel prototype. We had lengthy discussion with their legal team who insisted that was right and that language is included to cover changes that happened between 1-1-2002 and the execution date of the restatement. We have now written over 6,000 documents that way, and I still disagree with their analysis!

Corbel advises that the effective date should be the later of 1/1/2002 or the original effective date of the plan. As such, I am cunfused about your reference to using either 1/1/2009 or 1/1/2010 as the effective date on your Corbel restatements.

This is becoming a comedy of errors. We have been contacted by several plan participants who say that the company has been out of business for 2 years and no one can find the sole trustee. However, we have recently received and processed distributions for other participants. Wondering whether someone had actually found the trustee, or someone had forged the trustee's signature, we pulled the plan document to compare the signatures. What we found is that the trustee never signed the document when the plan was adopted. Any suggestions how to fix this?

In the prototype it is question 69.3d4 in the checklist. The choice selected appears as the final sentence of the Loan Policy document.

What do their ERISA attorney and/or CPA think?

Corbel's EGTRRA document specifically asks if the participant is allowed to take a new loan if they've had a defaulted loan. The pretty much clears up any ambiguity on the issue.

Yes my first answer would be different it it had been deducted. You're allowed to take the money out of the plan in only very limited circumstances. Changing your mind is not one of them. I believe their only option is to leave it there to use for 2009, unless there's additional information that we don't have yet.