TPApril

Thank you Bill - second question is not about different policy years on one wrapped plan Form, but when the reported Schedule A information does not actually correspond to the policy year because they have been advised to run Schedule A based on plan year.

I have another question. I noticed some plans ask their carriers to issue off-year Schedule A letters that correspond to the plan year rather than the policy year which is different. How important is it that the actual policy year be reported? Example: Plan Year - 1/1-12/31 Policy Year - 4/1-3/31 Schedule A letter is issued for 1/1-12/31

What is the risk/exposure for unfunded/fully insured welfare benefit plans that do not file 5500's, or that file with incorrect information such as participant counts?

Thanks, was not aware of that. In such cases, did they allow the tpa to sign on behalf of the plan sponsor without submitting a pdf with signature?

does efast2 report the filing date of the local time zone where the plan is located, or the date based on the time in Washington DC? This is in reference to plans that file late in the evening on the west coast but the date has already changed in the east coast. how do they feel about plans filed a day late - as in 10/16?

I don't have the confidence not to report it. However due to small amount not filing 5330 or VCP. 5 delinquencies from 1 to 25 days late. Deposit has been made, calculated per DOL calculator.

Small plan ultimately had delinquent contributions in 2012 which resulted in a total of $1.25 in Lost Earnings. We will be checking yes on the 5500 but is the Lost Earnings so small that the deposit can be skipped? Less than $1.00 of it goes to non-owners.

This is not my specialty, so no this is not a trick question. Employee in question has been told by FSA provider that only $5,000 per household so the answer is 'no., but in my inexperience I had said I thought they could each deduct $5,000 since they are separate children and they are filing individually.

Howabout this situation - two single people are living together (thereby filing separate taxes), each with their own children. Can they each deduct $5,000 FSA for childcare on their respective children?

401k small plan sponsor has just decided to terminate plan by end of year. Plan up to date on amendments but they no longer have a plan attorney. They will not be filing a DL. Is it acceptable to just create a plan resolution to terminate from a template?

What are the implications of 12/31 for a company whose fiscal year is 6/30 and would like to start up a pension plan? ie do they need to start it up by 12/31 to take any kind of 2012 deduction or is that irrelevant due to the fiscal year?

What's the general approach to including attachments for Schedule H lines 4i and 4j - separate the attachment from audited financials and attach that, or a one page grid form which states "See audited financials". reason i ask is a prior firm used the second option for my new client's 2010 form but i have never before done that or seen that. i've always included actual attachment. is this a reason to amend 2010?

Same topic, but as related to Defined Benefit Plans - should participants who retire, generally after ssa age, and begin receiving their monthly benefits be reported as 'D', or can they be ignored?

In a sense then, there is an argument to not report it, but the reality is they didn't necessarily do their due diligence on their end to make sure it was deposited. I would add to the information above that total late deposit is $399 and lost earnings to current are $4.99.

As I much as I know the answer to my question, I thought I would throw it out there for any comments... Small company has never deposited 401(k) late. In 2011, one check was lost in the mail and no one noticed it until reconciling year end accounts four months later (there were three payrolls that month so everything appeared normal on quick glance). So contributions were late and now must be reported on 5500, and lost earnings restored to trust. My question is - is the company's record of having written the first check enough to not treat it as a reportable late contribution?

Another simple question - does an owner pay lost earnings on his/her own late 401(k) deposit?

Yes, we are doing a self correction and have increased some pension payments by small amounts and want to calculate the interest on the amount that was underpaid from date of retirement to current.

Payroll is based on the 15th of every month, but paydate is actually the 20th. For reviewing whether 401k deposits are late, is it correct that we would use the 20th since that is the actual date the monies are separated?

What's the current interest rate used for calculating interest on underpmts from a pension plan? I saw it was to use the 30 year pbgc rate as of 1/1 for each year to 2008 but what is 2009 since?

You might want to consider another method of searching old forms, such as paying for a subscription service that gives you access (I don't do so so cannot recommend one). reason I say this is as I recall, freeerisa doesn't give many forms before 2009 anymore and clients I look up also have 2001-2002 but nothing until 2009. Another option, why not call the IRS Office of Public Disclosure at 202-693-8673 and maybe they can help tell you which years have not been filed. Whether that initializes an inquiry I don't know.

This is along the same theme of calculating final average earnings based on five consecutive years where the plan document leaves a lot to be desired (or interpreted) for the first and last years of calculation. In this case, FAE is defined as the average of ee's Monthly Comp. Monthly Comp is defined as 1/12 of W-2 pay while participating in the plan. In this plan, participant can get partial year credit for months worked during the year. The way the prior actuaries calculated FAE was to count actual months of first year (when under 5 yrs) and then no consistency for last year. If the total was less than 60 months, then sometimes they counted actual months in last year, sometimes they counted 12. If there were greater than 5 years worked, then they always counted 12 months for the final year (if comp was greater than 5 years earlier). Makes sense for those longer employees, but I have no clue which is the best approach for the shorter term employees. I'm dizzy and will apparently be correcting for about half of those who have less than five full years of comp. Any thoughts?

I was under the impression that bundled providers were to provide separate, to some extent, fees that are related to basic TPA roles such as compliance testing and Form 5500. I am reading one such disclosure. For services it refers reader to an unattached, previously provided, document called 'Recordkeeping and Administrative Services Agreement'. It then says 'Consistent with this “packaged” structure, the compensation and fees we receive are not broken out into a fee for each specific service we provide.' I may be naive but it would seem that such providers would have different cost structures whether the plan is bundled or not which would make this easy to disclose. I also thought this was required by 408(b)(2). Is this disclosure really sufficient?

Just rephrasing prior question. ERISA Plan transitions to fully voluntary, not run through cafeteria plan, post tax payments made through payroll. Can this plan simply stop filing 5500? The closest thing we have found to a company endorsement is that the enrollment form says the company name. Is that right there enough to disqualify plan from safe harbor, thereby requiring 5500 filing?

I'm not familiar with the manual option of using an actual handwritten signature to submit a 5500. My question is: If a Form is signed and dated on one day (10/15), but efast2 shows a later date as submitted (10/20), is the form considered late?

Any recommendations on general resources for issues related to health & welfare plan documents, 5500's, schedule A's and other similar issues?