RCK

I agree with the consensus here that it constitutes a hardship. The challenge is how to apply your normal documentation rules--there is probably not going to a signed purchase agreement.

I apologize if I'm missing something and making a serious response in the humor column. But isn't the EFAST2 User ID and PIN belonging to the Plan Administrator/Sponsor the confidential information referred to here?

Andy, I hereby offer you a spot on the Minnesota Twins bandwagon.

Yes, its late, but we're still bogged down a bit. My interpretation of the alterntive reporting option for Eligible Indirect Compensation is that it is only available to providers who receive only EIC--not to a provider who received direct compensation, and eligible indirect compensation, and certainly not to a provider who received any other indirect compensation. And my problem is with a provider whose right hand does not know what the left is doing. So the right hand is getting only direct compensation, and the left hand is getting only eligible indirect. As long as both hands are reporting under the same EIN, can we use the alternative reporting option for the eligible indirect?

I agree with the concept, but I guess that I have to nit pick the words a bit. We would leave them in the plan until the next amendment--not the next restatement. The alternative is to just leave the employers there on the off chance that they come back to life, and once again have employees. If you amended them out, then you have to amend them back in again.

Under the category of how spoiled professional baseball players are, can you even imagine how great it would be to walk into work every day, and hear Bob Sheppard announce "Starting at actuary today, Andy the Actuary."

Apologies to Andy-I have to agree that the niches that she has identified will continue on for some time. But I have to say that if I had not already accumulated an AARP to go with my FSA, EA I'd be looking at a CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst) certification.

Nope, no exceptions. RCK, FSA, EA

Ironically, just this morning I told our Enrolled Actuary that he'd be able to shut off the (actuarial) lights when he retires because there would not be any DB plans left.

What about contributions? Are those being made in a timely manner? If contributions are going in, but loan payments are not, I would be sympathetic to it being just a systems glitch. But the other responders' comments are right on--15th of the month following the month of withholding at the absolute latest.

In case you need more support. I work for plan sponsor with a large (multibillion dollar) plan. It is a Safe Harbor with weekly matches and an annual true-up. It operates as you would anticipate--the true-up match is calculated as if the whole year was a single paycheck, adn the person contributing $100 out of $100,000 would receive $100. You do have to be sure that the amended plan language accurately describes what you would like to do. I just saw one of those emails that occassionally makes the rounds. This one had a bunch of sayings, includign this one: "No" simply means begin again at one level higher. That may apply here.

In a former life, I worked for an insurance company that wrote GIC's, and I worked on pricing for the 'surrender charges' for that contract. So: a GIC is first of all a Guaranteed Investment Contract--therefore a contract and that contract will have language about how the surrender charge is calculated. In theory, it is designed to do two things--first to help the issuer recapture unamortized expenses (they planned to do it over say 5 years, and that is what you agreed to, but now you've changed your mind), and second to let them recover possible market value losses. That is, they bought a 5 year bond that they were matching up to their committment to you, and if they have to sell that (say) 5% bond into a 7% market, they are going to suffer a slight loss. But if interest rates have moved down over the term of the contract, the bond that that they bought is now worth more than they owe you, and that portion of the calculation should be positive. Disclaimer: this is all a simplistic overview of a complicated deal, and somewhat dated. But the bottom line remains the same--its a contract, and you need to check the terms of the contract. And you will probably need to contact the issuer for a calculation of the charge.

Good point. But our deductible is an awful lot bigger than that. Will keep it in mind for the next one though.

Clarification for masteff: The distribution from the plan went to a DOMESTIC BANK in the name of our participant. From there it went to a foreign bank. The second transaction had nothing to do with the plan.

In response to some of the earlier posts, I have raised some of these high level issues with the recordkeeper. I do know that we put significant value on the fact that we have the participant on a recorded line with the call center, admitting that he received the Change of Banking Information notice, and did not pay any attention to it. I'm not sure how much impact that has in court, but it does make us feel better.