GBurns

Aren't we almost all temporary employees subject to termination at "will" or "for cause"? Does this temporary employee get a W2 or a 1099? If a W2 then the person must be an employee. What is the Plan definition of an employee? What are the eligibility requirements?

What happens if the 401(k) has an employer match and the HSA has no employer contribution? Then would it not be better to use the 401(k)?

The employee cannot deduct on a 1040 etc the HSA contributions made on a pre-tax basis through a cafeteria plan simply because they were already treated to a tax deduction on the payroll. No double dipping is allowed.

telarsen Was the money from a retired client or was it from a Roth IRA owned by the retired client? They are 2 very different things. Most people are advised to get legal help when entering into any major contract such as buying real estate. Buying or financing a deal such as you described is no different from becoming a mortgage lender. Certainly legal advice would be prudent in this case.

Think about it. If the business is not incorporated, What will the IRA own, how will the business be run and by whom? If the "business" is incorporated, the IRA can only own shares/stock. So what do you mean by "own a business"? Think about the differences and then see if you have your answer or want to rephrase your question.

I thought that you might have needed some make up exercise in honing your hostility (as per 1 of your posts) since I seemed to have been deficient recently. I thought could be was celebrating. Could be? Maybe not.

I usually see these denied. Reasons being, not medically necessary, unidentifiable illness, not regarded as proper treatment protocol, not within treatment guidelines for the particular ilness or disease if one is specified. In general, they could not be shown as accepted treatment for care, treatment or mitigation of any specific illness or disease.

I assume that this is a self-insured plan. The answer depends on whether or not any personally identifiable information is used by or disclosed to the employer. If none, no HIPAA problem. If yes, What and Why would an employer even have been given this information by the Claims Administrator in the first place? However, such information could be produced by the Claims Administrator or a Third Party, who would produce the Departmental allocations without identifying the individual employees or disclosing any detail imformation. Care has to be taken regarding those Depts with only 1 employee especially if any action is ever taken against that employee that might be construed as having a connection to either the operating costs of that Dept or the cost of providing employee health benefits in general.

Those tips were food for thought and yes I do have work to do, but All work and no play makes ..... a ..... ........ Invite mother if your date is with another actuary. Many seem to have used a variant of the lifetime pitch to create a sense of urgency a la I'm shipping out tomorrow, we might not get another chance or, I might never meet another like you or Take what you can get in case nothing better comes along soon enough or Practice makes perfect, you do not have to see me ever again although I will be eternally grateful and worship you for the rest of my life. These are things that I have heard as having worked, so do not blame me, I am only a messenger of these ideas. Probability of second dates should not reduced to 1 decimal place, accuracy is still important every chance counts.

Bird It is not the voting for the plan that matters, the employees have to vote for representation by that union first. The Union and the employer cannot enter into any bargaining and any agreement until after voting by the employees to have that union etc.

I question the whole idea of it being a valid union and CBA and look forward to the action that the regulators will take soon. I cannot imagine how you can have a union for which there was no employee voting, for which there was no ratification and no bargaining therefore no CBA. I also wonder whether this is a MEWA or a MEP. I also could not find a M1 on the DoL site and I could not find it as a state MEWA (but maybe I do not have the correct name). This smells like some of the "Union" health plans that have been closed down by many states over the last few years.

This should be of help in determining the 1st and subsequent premium dates: http://www.onque.com/tips/first_premium.html

Belgarath, I do not know who you speak to at the IRS etc, but have you ever independently verified whatever those persons tell you? My reason, is that the GAO etc surveys show a high error rate at the CSR level, while a look at case law from Tax Court etc shows that there is also a high error rate at other levels. So I wonder what the error rate is "in between".

I am still here. I usually only post when I have some thing of value to add or a question to ask. Others have been answering with great expertise etc and I have understood the post and had no questions. But, it seems that I might be missed by a few, so I will look for more opportunities. Now that you have caused me to post JanetM might not like you so much any more.

The Kentucky case should be helpful since many other jurisdictions are either of similar opinion or leaning. That is 1 of the reasons why I stated that it should not be too difficult to add these providers to the network, providing of course that these providers are willing.

I guess that brings us back to the example regarding Orthodontic expenses.

Why does the fee have to be related to a specific treatment or service? Isn't it by its very nature related to the expenses of medical care? As an analogy, Do you pay a hospital bill by its line items or do you pay by its general nature? Do you reimburse the copay for a Drs visit where there was no diagnosis or treatment of any illness? Do you allow the pretaxing of the FSA administrative fee? If so, what specific treatment or service is it related to ?

IMHO the employer is right. Coverage is what illnesses etc will be treated, while the provider network relates to availability of services. They are probably defined in the PD and the insurance contract. My question is why did the union sign the Memo of Understanding (or whatever was used) accepting the change without addressing the provider network issue? It should not be too difficult to expand the network especially if this is a large enough group. Has this been considered?

By dividends I presume that you mean either an incentive to keep future claims low or a reward for having kept past claims low. The problem is that what happens 1 year most likely will not be repeated in the next year by many, although it is easy to identify those who incurred large claims. However, If you do identify those who have had or can be predicted to have large claims, such as those with diabetes, COPD, MS, cancer etc, and then use this info, this would/should create privacy, discrimination and ADA issues.

I compare this to an employer pay all plan where the employees get the coverage of their choice whether individual, individual and spouse or family coverage. It is not discriminatory if 1 employee gets family coverage fully paid while the other gets only individual coverage, because that is what coverage they needed, not that 1 plan cost $280 and the other cost $780 per month. I also would compare it to what happens in many plans, but is most visible in self-insured plans. Employee A does not go to the Dr even 1 time for the year and so incurs no claims, but Employee B has triple bypass surgery that failed and so followed up with a heart transplant for a total cost of $580,000. It is not considered discriminatory that 1 employee got $580,000 in benefits while another got $0. They both got what was needed to meet their medical requirements. However, in the scenario that Don gives, there could be a problem if this was only done for HCEs and not available to all participants. I do not think that it is the final amounts paid that would create a problem but more what is made available at the start of each plan year.

Shouldn't your concern be more with when the expense is incurred rather than with "when are the services incurred"? You are reimbursing for the incurred expense not for the srevices.

valerie, I said "Get your self a competent advisor experienced with this issue and in the taxation of IRAs in particular." I said nothing about CPAs. It would be your decision to use a CPA if you feel that CPAs (as a general term) meet the criteria stated. There is nothing factual or logical that makes a CPA knowledgeable about taxes or IRAs solely by being a CPA.

Where does the shareholder employee get to deduct insurance premiums? Where does an individual get to deduct personal insurance premiums?

Yes.

A deductible is part of the cost of the medical care. If the insurance coverage provided 100% UCR then there might be no out of pocket or deductible, however, if to reduce costs and utilization cost sharing was introduced such as by providing 80/20 coverage, the employee would have 20% out of pocket or deductible. Having a deductible or co pay is only the result of sharing the cost of the medical care. The costs are caused by the medical care and are only there because expenses for medical care were incurred. I have seen nothing in 105 that implies "direct costs" or direct payment to providers. If direct payment to service providers was the only thing allowed, then section 125 FSAs could not exist. FSAs only have tax free reimbursements because of the exclusion allowed by 105.