Lou S.

This link should work for the one offered on 12/15 https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/925/18376 If not do a google search on "Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System Changes (Revenue Procedure 2016-51) IRS Webcast" You can subscribe to IRS Employee Plans News here and the links to register to future IRS webcasts will come via e-mail. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/employee-plans-news-3

While the IRS phone forum/webcast no longer seem to provide a certificate for CE I do believe they qualify for self study that can be reported for ASPPA credit. These are typically 1 hour so only 1 credit a piece and there are one or two scheduled before year end. They also may have past one recorded but I'm not certain of this. I miss when the IRS phone/web stuff gave EA credit.

You will need to report the flow of assets from BOY to EOY for the Plan. The assets are assets of the plan at BOY and have simply moved to a new investment. Somehow, you or someone else will need to reconcile the flow for the full year.

I think there are 2 things to be concerned with - 1 is the payout still under the 415 limit. 2 would this be a discriminatory amendment in practice There may be some other issues I'm not thinking of at this time. Is there a problem with simply allocating the excess assets to participants in a nondiscriminatory manner up to the 415 limit, assuming the document so provides?

I would suspect that in court the Plan Sponsor and/or Plan would prevail over the fraudulent claim for benefits from the person not entitled to those benefits but would likely need to determine if the cost of pursuing it is worth the recovery of the funds. If they can't recover the funds then yes they would have to restore them.

Are the assets coming due to a plan merger? Or did the plan simply change investment platforms?

Good to know. Sometimes it is nice to be wrong.

Does not have to be January 1 but it is too late to start a Safe Harbor Plan for calendar year 2016 as you need 3 months effective deferral to be a 1st year safe harbor plan. Plan would have needed to be in place by September 30th, 2016 for safe harbor. You can be a regular 401(k) for 2016 with profit sharing or match feature but you are subject to ADP/ACP testing on deferral and match. You can also use prior year testing for 2016 allowing the HCEs to get 5% of pay plus catch-up for 2016 as prior year assumed to be 3%. You could set up safe harbor for 2017 or amend regular 2016 401(k) to 2017 safe harbor at the same time as the plan is set up.

Are you expecting logic from the folks at Treasury?

Unless something has changed since the last time I looked at this, the regs are silent on this issue. I believe IRS informal guidance (possibly from the podium at an ASPPA conference) was that the safest course was to continue the RMDs that had begun. I do not know if there have been further comments on this issue.

If you are a member of ASPPA they will track your CE, at least for credits earned through them. They've somewhat limited self reporting in some areas. I'm not sure about ERPA.

No. If he's covered by a 401(k) plan he's considered covered whether or not he can make a full contribution to the 401(k). He falls under whatever rules apply to a person covered by a plan and deductions are then bases on MAGI.

Tell them no problem as long as they will prepare the 5330 at no charge and off set any admin fees by any excise tax owed for not getting it done in the 2.5 month window.

If J&S plan buy him an annuity. If not a J&S Plan roll him to an IRA and send him their contact info.

Thoughts? Get paid in advance. After that. Sure prepare 1099-Rs for the actual years the distributions occurred. There may be some late filing fees. Best of luck.

I haven't worked on any FSAs in a long time but I was under the impression they were annual. That said here is some prior discussion but it 14 years old and I don't know if anything substantial has changed since then http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php/topic/15667-termination-of-fsa/ If the company ceases to exist I would assume it might depend on is there are solvent responsible parties or not as participants might be considered creditors with unsecured claims but I am not an attorney.

Yes you would be top heavy. You could be a safe harbor match with no PS and get the TH exemption. Or you could do a PS contribution but this would blow the TH exemption so you would likely have a 3% minimum PS contribution to comply with TH. You could be a safe harbor 3% with the 3% as a floor that satisfies TH and make a PS that could be on top of that and possibly cross tested. There could be some issues with satisfying TH in some cases like bases contribution on date of entry where TH is on full year. Or you could not do a safe harbor and you might blow the ADP test, refund all deferrals to HCEs and still have a TH minimum that year.

Wait, you mean retirement plans are for accumulating retirement plan assets for participants retirement needs and not just getting a tax deduction for the owner?

Spinoff is another way to go. Of course if there is bad blood and some terminated employee with balances you can bet there with be bickering and arguing over whose plan get stuck with them if there are participant fee implications and bickering and arguing over who should be blessed with them if their are reductions in asset management charges implications...

What do they want to do? If bad blood, terminating and starting fresh, probably granting service with old company in both new plans is probably the cleanest way to go.

No you can't do it that way. You need to pro-rate the basis between the two. There might be a workaround - You might be able to roll the $130,000 of earnings to a qualified retirement plan and then convert the remaining balance to a ROTH-IRA. Taxwise that would accomplish what you want but investmentwise it may not and you need to have a qualified plan you want to roll the funds into.

Have you tried to locate the beneficiaries? I suspect the Plan has default provisions in the event that no beneficiary form exists. Does the Plan have provisions to forfeit the benefits and restore them in the event that beneficiaries are later found?

The way Belgarath describes it is the correct way. The way RatherBeGolfing describes it what usually happens in practice.

I don't see how it could be lower on a termination basis. It could be higher if participants elect annuity benefits but I don't see how it could be lower than the sum of the hypothetical accounts that are being paid out.

As noted above, we never work with valuation dates other than the first day of the plan year so I wouldn't know. Is that automatic approval still in effect (for those who do use end of year valuation dates)? I think the final 430 regulations last year allow for this. Here is a link to the ASPPA summary written by Jim Holland https://www.asppa.org/News/Article/ArticleID/5583/ct/8c8f44dd3e571b331a51c26307af870c5e94348a5dd0dd1eea31ffff8e9d280fe950dfb5ed42d9c8d543dd8868ade120bd1225a904db7c63c74e8b57102b9288 and in case the link doesn't work here is the excerpt from the link