Lou S.

I am not aware of any exception for 1st year plans and I was unable to find any special rule in the instructions to Form 5500.

I'm confused. Are you talking about employer contributions like profit sharing? If they are late then then aren't deductible for that tax year. If they are more than 30 days after the due date they are part of the next year's 415 limit not the prior year. (though I think that may be different for 412 DC plans like Money Purchase).

Do you force married couples to open a non joint account to make payments? I'd have trouble making the payment to an account where the participant is not listed as an account holder but if they want it to go to a joint account, I'm not sure any authority exists to deny the payment.

It does not reduce out of pocket costs for the plan sponsor. Do we not all agree that this is the point of a vesting schedule at the end of the day? To reduce costs for the employer? I thought it was to benefit long term employee and encourage loyalty...at least once upon a time when I started in this business.

If he's the only participant he, he is not a PBGC plan - assuming he is also the owner of the business. If you have a CG attribution (possibly because of community property state issues with husband-wife) then you likely have 401(a)(26) coverage issues with the plan and it could be a PBGC covered plan if the wife's business adopts the plan and there are more participants than just the owner husband and wife.

If 2014 was a short plan year, yes you can do what My 2 cents suggests. If the plan was adopted in September retroactive to January 1st (to get full year limits for 415 & 401(a(17)) pretty sure you are going to need an audit for 2014.

I can't speak for all prototype documents but I'm almost certain that ours had a clause in the Master Text that said if it it wasn't answered that the State Law or the Plan Sponsor (or maybe the Plan Administrator which in our case was usually the same) would govern.

I've never heard of it having to go to a different IRA. I always though the point of the rule was more, "oops I changed my mind I don't really want to liquidate my retirement savings and pay taxes and penalties." The 1 rollover per year rule (with tightened guidelines about 1 per taxpayer per year) is designed to stop the abuse of the rolling interest free IRA loans. You can still to direct transfer of IRA -> IRA as often as you want through trustee -> trustee transfer.

Unless there is QDRO assigning the benefits to the spouse, it would a violation of the anti-alienation provisions of 401(a)(13) to pay the benefits of the participant to the spouse (or her IRA).

I could see an argument for either but I'd treat them as "active" since they are still employed by the Plan Sponsor at EOY.

1 - None that I can see. 2 - Correct the prior distributions from the "old" DB plan goes against the 415 limit of each participant in the "new" plan.

New one on me. I've never heard of such a thing.

1 - if the person is eligible then you can no longer file and EZ even if the participant has a $0 balance. 2 - no clue for sure but if they discovered the missing 2013 Form 5500 and sent notice, it is likely they will discover the missing 2012 return if they try to match BOY 2013 assets with EOY 2012.

We've used that option when there is less than 3 months left and you can't put in the safe-harbor that year because you can't meet the minimum time requirements. Works for new plans or a PS plan adding a 401(k) feature for the first time.

As Tom is alluding to you are not exempt unless you follow all the rules which include telling folks about the plan, giving them the effective right to defer and handing out the required annual safe harbor notices timely each year. If you do comply with all the rules and the owner is still the only one contributing in might look a little fishy but from a legal stand point it is all good and still deemed not top heavy.

The only ways they would need an additional TH contribution is if there were non-safe harbor employer contributions or allocations of forfeitures, or if you had some split eligibility where the right to make 401(k) contributions was sooner than the right to receive safe harbor contributions - such as immediate eligibility to make 401(k) but year of service to receive match. Otherwise as TPA correctly points out a plan that has only deferrals and safe harbor contributions is exempt for the TH requirements or is deemed to be not TH.

Assuming they have no other 401(k) and you have at least 3 months left in the plan year, then yes you can.

http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Retirement-Plan-FAQs-Regarding-Contributions-How-much-can-I-contribute-to-my-self-employed-SEP-plan-if-I-participate-in-my-employer%E2%80%99s-SIMPLE-IRA-plan%3F Assuming you max out the Simple IRA you can put the difference into the 401(k) Plan essentially - 401(k) limit minus what you contributed to SIMPLE-IRA. That covers the deferral part. You could also make an employer contribution of up to 25% of eligible pay to the 401(k) plan. If you are a corp with $30K of W-2 income then that would be $7,500. If you are sole prop. with Sch C net income of $30K it is a bit more complicated but there are a ton of calculators in threads on this site if you search and on line that can help you determine the max but is should come out in the neighborhood of an additional $5,500.

Only until the partiicpant has a disributable event, right? Then it is offset and he's back to square one? Correct. I was going by the OP stated condition that no distributable event had occurred.

If you failed in 2012 how are you correcting in 2015? Refunds, if that is correction method must be made by 12 months after PYE otherwise you are looking at one of the VCP corrections. Am I missing something? I probably am.

No, unless the plan allows multiple loans and the participant still has room under the loan limits. The defaulted loan still accrues interest and is counted against both the number of loans allowed and against the maximum amount allowed to be borrowed under §72(p).

It can be either year (provided the short PYE is no more than 7 months). You need to attach an explaination of why the audit is not attached and being deferred to the next year. And the next year has to have the audit results for both PYEs. We've never had one in practice so I can't help with the mechanics but the instructions seem pretty clear. I'd suggest contacting your software vendor on how to handle as you can't be the first to come across this issue when filing.

I though the IRS guidance on In-plan ROTH rollovers and In-Plan ROTH conversions pretty clearly stated that you could not have those provisions without also allowing on going ROTH deferrals. I'm not sure if that extends to accepting rollovers from outside or merging in assets from a plan that allows ROTH to one that does not (in a corporate transaction scenario in essence creating a frozen from new contributions ROTH source).

I agree. I see no reason why an employer can't be made on behalf of a deceased participant unless the plan terms prohibit it which a SEP would not. I also agree that a deceases person could not make an election to defer, however if they had an election to defer a percentage of Sch C income or dollar amount conditioned on having sufficient Sch C income to support it I could see the surviving spouse honoring the election and making the deferral.

First you might want to check to see if your Plan Document has fail safe gateway language just for this situation, I know our old prototype and current volume submitter both have such language. If the Plan does, then you just allocate the gateway and assuming you pass all the other test than you are done, no need for amendment. If the Plan doesn't have such language then yes this sounds like a classic 11(g) amendment situation to correct the failure.