GBurns

A change to a Plan would require Board approval but certainly not shareholder approval. What is a 423 Plan?

If your friend has a car, their car insurance should be the stop for medical coverage. Most car insurance policies cover the owner and listed members of the household whether in the car, on foot or otherwise. The payments is triggered by an "automobile accident"? This automobile insurance coverage would provide the needed medical treatment (up to coverage limits) and the insurance company would be the ones that your friend could get to start pursuit of the other insurance company etc. Please remind them that they must make a report to the Police and to their insurance company ASAP.

Aside from searching the old threads on this and other BenefitsLink Forums, you could start with this link: http://www.125plan.com/FlexLinks.htm#Flex%20Flash! When you have finished this go to their main page and look for other articles.

Why not try the Form 5500 forum instead?

I agree that the hypnosis could be regarded as being for the treatment of anxiety, BUT only if that was the condition that was diagnosed, which I do not think that it was. I do not think that it matters who administers it as long as they are licensed to provide such treatment. While I do have to self-administer the two martini program, I am very willing to consider acceptable offers of help. The provider might be able to claim physical therapy (if we can find a sympathetic FSA TPA to accept a medical recommendation) or at least travelling. In fact now that I think about it, I am going to see if I can get alcohol doses as a prescription from my Dr either as heart, hypertension or as a depressant with dosage administration by a licensed person. I think that bartenders have to be licensed in Florida.

While that seems to have been what the OP was asking, as quite often happens other issues were raised by subsequent posts which is why the thread continued.

Being old news does not mean that everyone or even most are aware of it, that is why questions are still being asked about aspects of 401(k) that have been there since the inception, but on which people still are not clear. I looked but I do not see where mbozek or anyone said or even insinuated any such thing. Where did you see that most plans are now written with such language? What mbozek did say is ..Ask the employer. This is the only way to know if the rollover will be accepted etc.

While I suggest that the cases involving Microsoft and AOL etc should be read, simple searches on Google should bring out a number of articles put out by various law firms on the issue. One such is attached: http://www.frof.com/articles/artDetail.asp?id=397

Carolynn, Thanks for the comment (compliment?). I usually get other types of comments.

Archimage,I can see the trust provisions being written into the documents but what do the Trustees sign accepting the provisions and the job?

Aren't Plan Documents and Adoption agreements signed by the employer Plan Sponsor, whereas the Trust Agreement is signed by the Trustee?

After the annual announcement and therefore the commitment to that now specified contribution, doesn't that remove the "discretion" as far as that specified period is concerned?

Mike, Are you saying that an employer cannot have a plan that allows its independent contractors to participate?

One difference that should be noted is that in the previous thread, the hypnosis was the treatment. In this case the hypnosis is not the treatment but is an elective "mood" modifier, no different from the 2 martinis that I have before being willing to hear bad news from my cardiologist. The cardiologist is reimburseable and I wish that the martinis were.

You lost me. If these are self-funded plans.. What do you mean by "Each time the renewal period came up "? Renewal of what? The stop loss insurance?? This would have very little effect. What is the calculation rationale that creates "The relative benefit value of the plans "? Why is there such a disparity between "The relative benefit value " and "the current pricing " and how do you arrive at the "priced correctly" "60% above" and "20% below"? I do not expect to understand any explanation that you will give but I am curious to see if there is any logic to the figures that you posted. What has the plan actuary provided as the COBRA rates for each plan and why would the figures that you posted be different from the COBRA rates (adjusted for the admin. charge)?

I think that it would be a good idea especially for HIPAA.

Yes.

Think back to cases such as Microsoft (there are also a few other large cases). Many of their consultants were determined to be employees and were entitled to full benefits even retroactively regardless of what their contract said. Some were because of hours worked but most were because of employer control issues that caused the reclassification by the IRS and the Courts. However, some who were entitled were still not eligible for some benefits because of the eligibility clause in some of the plans. So even if this poster is a valid consultant and thereby be a 1099 recipient in the future, it does not mean that they might not be benefits eligible because of other reasons (barring a clause in the PD).

I get the impression that you are at the same company (same employer) but with a change in title. If this is so, be aware that giving you a new title and climing that you are no longer an employee but a consultant might not be valid. It also might mean that even if valid you might still be entitled to benefits under the Plan. Can you clarify exactly what is happening?

What is a "staffing agency"? Is it a placement firm, a temp agency or a PEO? In any case have you yet determined .. Who is the employer of these W-2 employees? There is no such thing as a co-employer as far as the IRC goes. Will the plan have to be a multiple employer plan in order to even be there and does your state allow multiple employer plans?

Is there some reason why the C-Corp parent cannot sponsor the plan for use by the subsidiary? Plan sponsorship after spin-off or sale is not a relevant issue at this time. Even if the liabilities and expenses are transferred to the sub, the net tax effect should be the same as before? What is the tax reasoning?

I never thought about it before and definitely not with regard to the OP. I would say that it could be as much as 1,000 : 1 (OP audit), although I really should not venture even a guess without first knowing how many ERISA required audit there really are. I do think that these OP type audits should be more frequent. My experience is that I used to see a lot of these errors when I was active in Pension Plans. I now see a lot of fairly similar errors in almost every self-fubded health plan, at least 1 error in every 5,000 claims e.g wrong provided paid, wrong claim paid, wrong item paid, wrong amount paid etc etc.

Mike, Read the posts, there is no mention of a Form 5500. qwert. The post only posed a question ..."What are other CPA firms doing to establish the proper payee is receiving funds from distributions from retirement plans?" and agve examples asking What if? and How?. There is no mention of embezzlement only of an audit to see what is happening. Embezzlement and forensic accounting etc is a whole nother issue. BUT, you do raise the point that I was trying to raise when you stated "Plans will often engage CPAs, lawyers, actuaries, and other consultants for so-called compliance audits." That is all that I pointed out... CPAs are not the only ones doing such audits therefore I asked .. Why CPAs only?

ALL my post asked was... "Why CPAs?" In other simple words and as also asked.. Does austin3515 think that only CPAs can do these audits and why does he think that CPAs (as purely CPAs) are trained in this area? I never said or insinuated that CPAs could not do this since they could have learned to do this outside of their CPA coure of study in the same way that mbozek learned outside the scope of study for his Bar exam. To answer your post... ANYONE who does the audit (whether CPA, Lawyer or otherwise) is responsible to perform whatever it was they were contracted to do whether or not they received training in this area or not and SHOULD NOT ( which is what I think you meant to say) be held harmless because of any lack of training. You take the assignment you take the responsibility.

Remember that ducks do not speak (and reportedly do not understand)any of the human languages in real life so some people might or could misread your reference or analogy and equate you (intellectually) with the duck. I am sure that is not what you intended. An easy way to solve your frequent problems of not understanding what the issues are and what other posters post, is just to sit back and reread each post before you make comments, especially your own posts which you never seem to really read before pressing Submit.