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We've been periodically contacted by overseas firms who offer qualified plan admin on U.S. plans and are considering talking to them. As it's been several years since this was last discussed, I'm curious as to what experiences other employee bfts administrators on this board have had with offshoring and whether the general opinion on this topic has moved one way or the other over the last five years.

From the IRS website re 8955 FAQs at http://www.irs.gov/retirement/article/0,,id=238940,00.html Q & A 1 is: "I understand that the Form 8955-SSA replaced the Schedule SSA (Form 5500). When is the PY 2009 filing data due? The Form 8955-SSA is to be used for Plan Year (PY) 2009 filings and thereafter. The due date for filing the 2009 and 2010 Forms 8955-SSA is the later of (1) January 17, 2012 or (2) the due date that generally applies for filing the Form 8955-SSA for the 2010 plan year." Seems that both the 2009 and 2010 forms for a 6/30 YE would be due 1/31/12, with an extension possible to 4/17/12.

Am I correct to think that even though the instructions for Form 5500-SF say that it requires no other schedules or attachments, Form 8955-SSA would still be required to be filed (separately, not with the SF)? And that the 8955 is not applicable for plans that file Form 5500-EZ?

A >5% owner attains age 70 1/2 on 12/28/11, so it appears that the RBD for his RMD will be 4/1/12. His advisor, however, insists that there's an exception for participants who are born in the latter half of June, i.e., he wouldn't be considered attaining 70 1/2 until 2012, and therefore his RBD isn't until 2013. We were not able to find such a provision after looking through both IRC 401(a)(9) and Treas. Reg. 1.401(a)(9)-2. The Treas. Reg. even had the example of someone who was born on 6/30/33 having an RBD on 4/1/04. The advisor's belief seems unfounded - has anybody ever heard of such an exception?

I have been asked to isolate exactly where in the federal laws it says that elective deferrals in a qualified 401k plan are deductible. So far, I have cross-referenced IRC sections 401(k)(2)(A) and (B), 402(g)(3)(A), 402(g)(a)(8), and 415©(1) and (2). Although I did not expect the references to be very direct, I was hoping for something a little more useful. Are there any other areas in the laws that more clearly describe how deferrals are technically considered employer contributions and, therefore, deductible?

Thank you for your response. The transfer of employees occurred because co. B has fewer workers comp claims than co. A, so they can save on wc premiums if they show the employees working for co. B. Initially, their cpa likened the new arrangement to co. A subcontracting their payroll function to co. B, but I'm guessing if that was true they would still be considered co. A employees and the wc premium issue wouldn't change. Since my original post I have been told that the cpa has recommended that about 3/4 of the employees be shown as terminating their employement with co. A, as they continue to be paid by co. B only. This seems to have somewhat clarified how this should be handled. However, I imagine this would result in a partial plan termination causing the terminated employees to be entitled to 100% vesting.

Company A has sponsored a PS plan that has covered many employees for several years. A 25% owner of co. A also owns 95% of company B, which never had any employees. Co. A figures out that its workers comp premiums would be much less if they show all of the employees working for co. B and on 1/1/11 start having co. A pay all payroll amounts to co. B, who in turn pay the employees (and, I assume, the owners). This would appear to indicate that everyone's employment terminated at co. A and they were hired by co. B on 1/1/11, and that the "same-desk" rule is not invoked since neither co. A or its assets were sold. If this is correct, all of these employees are now allowed to receive distributions even though they're working at the same location doing the same job they had before 1/1/11. Co. A is still in existence, at least on paper, and its 3 owners haven't yet decided whether they would like to keep the plan and continue providing benefits to the employees (they may still decide to keep making small contributions in the future). If they want to keep it going, I suppose the plan can be amended to include co. B as a participating employer. Although both companies once in a while work together to perform services for third persons, each company provides less than 5% of the other company's revenue. And since providing payroll services is not a service historically performed in the service field of co. B, it appears that an affiliated service group situation does not exist. Althought the payroll arrangement may not be legit, is it correct to consider all of the participants to now be terminated employees and the plan will not have any new participants until co. A starts paying the compensations? All help is greatly appreciated.

That's great news! Where can I find the name and address of the Director, or would you mind posting it? Thanks!

Thank you for your responses. Gary, in this case it would be better if we didn't have to reflect a 415 increase, which appears to be an allowable, though conservative, approach. I would also guess that if it's done this way you couldn't revise the high-3 with higher comps paid after the date the benefits were frozen. Andy, the amendment didn't specify how the 415 limit may affect the frozen benefits. If this is dependent on an amendment's wording, it would suggest that increasing or not increasing the ABs would both be acceptable methods and that the lack of such detail in the amendment would permit either interpretation.

A plan freezes accruals and one participant's accrued benefit was being capped at the time to 30% of the 415 high-3 limit based on 3 YOS. A year later the participant has 4 YOS - would his frozen AB increase to the lesser of 40% of the 415 limit or what his AB would've been at the time the benefits were frozen without a cap? In other words, is the frozen AB literally written in stone even though the participant's 415 limit continues to grow? Is the answer different if he was being capped by the 415 $ limit instead?

I've had similar situations in the past regarding status requests with different IRS departments. What usually happened was I would call several times, each time being told that they would look into it, and sometimes asking me to put the request in writing. When pressed to have a callback with any info, I was told that they couldn't guarantee someone would call, and, of course, they didn't. As you probably are aware, you can never be transferred to a supervisor, although once I was transferred for an actuarial audit (but that was many years ago). Unfortunately, you're probably right in your suspicion that it's not being worked on. My experience has been that after several follow ups I eventually talk to someone who says they don't have any record of it and the whole process should be restarted, which would lead to a discussion about the cashed user fee check (I'm assuming they cashed it and the client has the cancelled check). Wish I had a better solution, but you may just have to keep following up until you get someone who knows or cares enough to give you a meaningful answer. Although between the acknowledgement letter and the cancelled check you have solid evidence it was submitted, I would guess that when it comes time to restate again, they would expect you to submit the application assuming no FDL was issued, so I would keep following up and not let it slide. Hope it all works out.

In addition to the insurance company's prototype, we were also using FT William's for several DB clients, only to find out they did away with them for the EGTRRA restatements. They claimed they had very few takers for GUST docs, so they didn't see the need to keep them going! Thanks for the reply, though.

Can anyone recommend a firm that sponsors a DB prototype that gives the trustee the freedom to invest the plan's assets anywhere they like and not be restricted to the investments offered by the sponsoring company? We have been using such a prototype offered by an insurance company for decades, but their customer service has deteriorated so much that it's time for a change.

Not sure if I have this right. A top heavy 401k plan uses matching contributions to satisfy the SH requirements. A PS contribution will be made with the owner getting over a 15% allocation, so a 5% gateway applies to the NHCEs. The SH match can be used towards both the gateway amount for the NHCEs and the 3% top heavy contribution for the non-key HCEs. The matches and PS allocations are combined for each participant to calculate the EBARs/rate groups, and the deferrals are then added to those totals for the average benefit testing. Is this correct? Thanks in advance for all assistance.

A husband and wife fully own a business that sponsors a profit sharing plan. Both of them and their 2 adult children are the only participants and there are no other employees. The husband and wife are the only ones who have an account balance. I have read that a bond is required when a plan covers participants other than the owner and spouse, but what if these other participants do not have account balances?

Add Raymond James to the list.

From a design standpoint, would it be wrong to say that all PS plan docs should be drafted to have a new comparability allocation method and not specify on what basis the testing should be done, that way you could always use an integrated allocation as a worst case scenario?

Each participant in this case is their own allocation group. The document doesn't address how the testing should be done (it's an FT William doc). Just in case we're using different terms for the same thing, let me describe how the testing has been done in the past. The annual testing is solely based on the current year's allocations. This year, if all participants receive let's say 5%, the owner has the largest EBAR, so the "rate group" test fails, and the average benefits test also fails. The only way to make both tests pass (a necessity?) would be to reduce the owner to 3.5%. I suppose the lack of testing guidance in the document gives you maximum flexibility on how you can test, making it OK if everyone received the 5% - is this a correct interpretation?

So, it sounds like unless the employer amends their allocation method in their document to either a pro-rata method, or one that's integrated with the SS wage base, for example, the owner would be forced to allocate to everyone a greater percentage of pay than what he himself would receive. Thank you for your reply.

A profit sharing plan is originally set up with a new comparability allocation method and works fine for a few years until the employer's demographics change drastically - many of the younger employees were replaced with workers who are older than the owner. The plan now cannot pass the cross-testing even when everyone (including the owner) receives the same percentage of compensation as an allocation. I remember hearing a while back that in a scenario like this you can always "default" to a pro-rata allocation and not have to worry about cross-testing, even if the document does not specifically state this - has anyone else heard of this?

Perhaps this language should be included in termination amendments going forward. However, in this case there was no such amendment prior to the 1/1/10 plan entry date - does this mean the plan will have new participants to be included in the participant count on the 5500? How have you handled plan terminations a year after their effective date? All help is greatly appreciated.

We have a few calendar-year DC plans that terminated in mid-2009 whose trustees didn't pay out all of the benefits by 12/31/09. Since 1/1/10 is a plan entry date, do employees who meet the eligiblity requirements become participants or can there never be new participants entering a plan after its termination date? Also, I can envision a couple of the trustees dragging their feet on the payouts to where a full year could elapse from their plan's date of termination. I remember some time ago hearing that a termination goes away after a year if the assets have not been distributed, making the plan an active plan again - is this accurate? BTW, the plan terminations were done via board resolution, so waiting for IRS approval of the terminations is not the reason for the delay.

Thank you for your reply. I, too, would rather they not go through with this, at least until it's been established that it's not a PT. The problem is the owner has already lent herself $50K, so that's not an option. It seems that it all comes down to how "joint venturer" is interpreted.

The sole owner of a plan sponsor, who also participates in the plan and is the trustee, would like to lend her sister money from the plan. The sister is not involved at all with the sponsor or the plan, however, the concern is whether she would be considered a "joint venturer" under the party-in-interest/disqualified person definitions because she and the trustee are 50/50 owners of a rental property. The rental property has nothing to do with the sponsor or the plan. Is "joint venturer" meant to be only in relation to the company sponsoring the plan, or does it apply to anything they're both invested in? All help is greatly appreciated.

I don't believe so, as the instructions don't state that the exemption is conditional on how or if prior filings were made.