RCK

We would of course amend the plan if we decided it was prudent to change the process.

Large 401(k) Plan, with participants in virtually all states. Plan document says that in event of failure of beneficiary designation, the account goes to spouse children, per stirpes parents siblings estate And ERISA council (who drafted plan) says that is best practice, because it avoids probate on the estate. Recordkeeper on the other hand says that the best practice is spouse estate Because of the administrative burden of being sure (for example) that the son who submits a claim for benefits is the only child of the participant. So who do I believe?

We have a 401(k) Plan with a PPA Safe Harbor, and therefore automatic enrollment. So after they meet the eligibility requirements, the participant has roughly 30 days to opt out or they are automatically enrolled at 3%. After that, we give them 30 days to ask for a refund of those contributions. Lets say that they don't opt out, and the deduction is taken from their checks. They quit and 6 months later are rehired. Since they have not made an affirmative election to contribute or not to contribute, we auto enroll them again. The question is whether we can allow them to withdraw those contributions if they request that refund within 30 days of the first payday of the second period of employment, because the regulation says: A covered employee's election to withdraw default elective contributions must be made no later than 90 days after the date of the first default elective contribution under the eligible automatic contribution arrangement and must be effective no later than the date set forth in paragraph ©(2)(iii) of this section. Since this request is about 200 days after the first default elective employee contribution, we're thinking they can't have a refund after the second auto enrollment. Writing all this up got me thinking of a second question. Lets say that the participant askes for a refund of the contribution from the FIRST period of employment. Does this constitute an afirmative election not to contribute?

Arggh! I missed Happy Mole Day and Talk Like A Pirate Day?

Thanks, Thornton--the original post said the plan is daily valued.

Just curious: How do you daily value stock that is not publicly traded?

We merged several plans, and unfortunately the largest was not the survivor. So we want to file SSA's that show about 15,000 participants who had been reported as A's in the old plan over history as D's for the old plan and C's to the successor plan. Our auditor (who's also doing the 5500) is saying that they can't get the EFast to load more than 9,999 records for the SSA. Anyone out there who has been successful doing that? To make it more interesting, we'd like to do a cleanup sweep of all the terms who have ben paid out, to make sure that they are deleted. But that would give us in excess of a quarter million records. I'm not optimistic about that one.

I'm not sure about the answer to Andy the Actuary's question. But I am reassured that the new Explanation, with the following stated mission: "A principal purpose of the changes in the safe harbor explanations in this notice is to simplify the presentation and description of the participant’s options upon receiving an eligible rollover distribution." is 8 pages long.

Are you saying that both filings were done every year under the correct EIN and plan number 001? And that nobody noticed it?

As long as this is an asset deal, I agree. And I assume that by "employees transfer to the new company", you mean that the employees are HIRED by the new company.

Last year we consolidated several good sized plans into a single successor. The final filings for several of those plans had gaps in their SSA schedules. Specifically, we did not report those participants who had earlier been reported as Adds to the big plan, but which now have to be reported as Deletes to that plan and C's for the new plan. QUESTION 1: So all that is simple and straightforward, but what raises the question is that there will be about 14,000 D's to the old plan and C's to the new plan. Does anyone have any experience with eFast filing an SSA that is that large? Question 2: We've had so many unfounded inquiries from former participants, based on letters from the Social Security Administration that we'd like to do a final sweep, coding D for all past distributions to make sure that we did not miss any. But that sweep would give us about 280,000 D's. Anyone wih thoughts on the concept or the reality of trying to do the filing? Thanks for any thoughts.

We've gotten two of the dreaded letters. One for the 2006 filing for a plan that terminated so long ago that we're not even sure what it was (Say 1980's). One for a late filing for a late 2005 filing that was filed on time counting extensions. In both cases, we provided explanations to earlier responses in a timely manner.

Offhand, I'd think about consolidating them with the same recordkeeper and investment elections, to get some economies of scale. But would still leave them as separate plans to keep out of the audit requirement. You'd have to make sure that you get the coverage and ADP/ACP testing correct.

kate, Did you try contacting them at the address or phone number on the notice? Due to the dive in the stock market, most plan ARE drastically underfunded. Note also that you will get a lot more response if you re-post your question in the Defined Benefit section

Note that the 2007 filings are out there on freeerisa.com now. I believe that they were posted a week or two ago.

We just filed an amended 2001 5500 for a very similar situation. At the end of the plan, we made distributions to those we could, and merged the remainders into a surviviing plan. We have a copy of the final filing for the plan, showing all the participants as D's, but keep getting questions from them, showing that the SSA never posted that SSA form with the deletes. On the advice of our auditors, and lacking any better idea, we filed an amended 2001 5500 with a cover letter of explanation. It's only been a week or so, so no news yet.

I'm thinking that if you have a 5500 and or Schedule B, it is for a plan year that ended before 7/1/08. And therefore the "overfunding" has gone away. Problem solved.

I'd think that the details of a termination package would be discretionary. Based on the IRS's rules, you are absolutely an HCE. But you can argue that you should not be treated as one. I'd go in to HR or whoever is handling the process and present my case.

We (large plan sponsor) merged a pair of small 401(k) plans out of existence on July 1, 2008. So final 5500's were due January 31, 2009 and extended to April 15, 2009. We were ready to file about March 27, but saw no urgency so did not get around to it until April 3. One of the 5558 approvals came in on April 1, and one on April 2. If that first batch is an indicator of the future, we will think twice about filing early in the extension period.

Just to clarify here: Are you saying that the limit for HCE's in Plan A was $2,120? And that she made $4,820 of catchup contributions to B? (or to a third plan?)

Will there be a SOX blackout? Is it a daily valued plan? Are you making material changes in the investment philosophy of the funds, or just swapping managers with an identical mandate?

Yes, Big Bang Theory is entertaining. (given a willing suspension of disbelief). I believe that many frequent posters here are represented there. And as long as I'm insulting people here, to J Simmons: PYTHAGOREM???

Nice one, Andy, Is Ima an officer of A? Who is actually paying the employees of A? I don't care whose name is on the building--which EIN is on their W-2? Without more facts, I'd say that Ima CAN sign as the administrator.

Or you can amend to allow a trueup.

I believe that there are places on the Minnesota Ontario border where you can drive south from Minnesota into Ontario. You would have to be sure that the lake was well frozen though.