JanetM

IMHO if parent told A employees they were vested than they should follow through. I agree, amend effective 1/01/08 and vest all employees of A.

Depends. ER can say you have to work 6 months to meet eligibility to participant and you must work 1,000 hours to accrue a year of vesting credit or accrue a benefit for that year.

Yes you have to pass the gateway too. Depending on the size of the your non covered group it could be issue.

Of course you can bring it up to HR, your wife has the right (responsibility) to request and read the plan Summary Plan Description. The point is, if the limit is not put in place and then plan fails ADP/ACP discrimination testing refunds will have to be made to you wife of the excess contributions. We used to do this before we switched to safe harbor formula. We did preliminay test in July and normally cut all the HCEs off from additonal deferrals August 1. No only is it fair - using blanket restriction - it is required by the internal revenue code and ERISA for the purpose of testing. You only get two groups - highly and non-highly compensated.

If your SLOBs are QSLOBS you don't have to aggregate them for coverage or testing. The SLOB that has benefits must pass coverage separate from the SLOB that may have no benefits and SLOBs that do have benefits. In essense you treating each SLOB as separate employer and ignoring the others in the group. No the answer doesn't change. Just watch out for the substantial service employee if you start adding SLOBs.

opps - I am showing the address as 1160 W 1200 Street. Why not send USPS?

Internal Revenue Service Center, Ogden, UT 84201-002

I'm with you QRDOphile. Professional management and decent returns for all.

Ask the provider for reg site or ruling that explains the date on 5500 should be adoption date rather then effective date. 5500 preparers manual say this: LINE 1c Enter the original effective date of the plan, even if the plan has been restated. The effective date is stated in the plan document. If the filing is for a welfare benefit plan that does not have a formal document, show the date the insurance policy became effective. DFEs (other than GIAs) should leave this line blank.

I was able to get the penalty waive a few times by explaining extenuating circumstances. Examples - fire and loss of records, death of staff member who did this task, owners serious health condition. Unless you have a pretty compelling reason you are most likely stuck.

I agree Blinky. Too often scrivners error excuse is lame attempt to cover the fact you don't know plan provisions and are too lazy actually read the document. Why do you wonder why the client is calculating the contributions. We do the calculations for all our DC plans.

First thought is if this is profit sharing plan with last day rule you don't have cutback because no one has earned a benefit yet. As to the correction of prior years, if you have been using the wrong definition of comp you have operational failure that should be corrected.

This one is good. 401k board is good for investment or other self directed type question. If the a better board should be used normally a moderator will move the post for you.

Quick for your SAR to only list the required information. You have the right to receive a copy of the full annual report, or any part thereof, on request. The items listed below are included in that report: 1. an accountant's report; 2. financial information and information on payments to service providers; 3. information regarding any common or collective trusts, pooled separate accounts, master trusts or 103-12 investment entities in which the plan participates; and 4. actuarial information regarding the funding of the plan. Basically this information is the 5500 and attachments - without SSA. But since you say they can look at it you have to make it available. The SAR required language says this: You also have the right to receive from the plan administrator, on request and at no charge, a statement of the assets and liabilities of the plan and accompanying notes, or a statement of income and expenses of the plan and accompanying notes, or both. If you request a copy of the full annual report from the plan administrator, these two statements and accompanying notes will be included as part of that report. You also have the legally protected right to examine any of the above annual reports at the main office of that plan as noted above and at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., or to obtain a copy from the U.S. Department of Labor upon payment of copying costs. Requests to the Department should be addressed to: Public Disclosure Room, Room N1513, Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. Based on that I would say your participant has the right to come to Plan Administrators office and examine annual report from Trustee from the prior year. I would suggest to use only the required language and not make compliance any more difficult that it already is.

Any change you make should be prospective, like require renewal of %. Send out notice that all participants need to call/go online/mail new deferral elections by specific date. If new election is not made you can set a default election (of course you would have to amend plan to include this provision).

Is this a small plan where the ER is the main contact for changes to the plan or a large plan where participants go online to TPA site and make changes that flow back to ER payroll system? If this is small plan, just send out confirmation letters ... Dear employee, our records indicate you elected 10% of your pay to be contributed to the 401k plan. Please confirm this is correct or complete the form to elect new %. Keep it simple. Don't cancel anyones elections, has a negative conotation.

I assume the loan was take after jan 2005 since rates were lower than than they are now, but there is more than just the rate to look at. If the participant wants to refinance the loan does your recordkeeper simply reamortize the remaining loan at new rate? If so, is there a new loan fee? Does the interest saved exceed the loan fee enough to justify the change? I ran the figures, if you borrowed $5,000 on 8/01/06 at 8.25% and refied on 8/01/08 with balance of $3243 at 5% you would save $5 per month. The savings would exceed cost of loan. But if you had taken $5,000 on 8/01/05 at 6.25 and refied on 8/01/08 with balace of 2,188 at 5% the savings would only be $1.25/month for 24 months.

Aren't refinance and renegotiate two different things?

I understand why you want to invest tax deferred, but what is wrong with having a taxable investment? Other accounts to address - emergency savings fund, college fund, long term care? Once you have the basics covered you can invest in taxable account. When the account is large enough you can invest in individual stocks & bonds.

Hang on one second, do you have a loan policy that sets the rate? If you do you will have to change the loan policy and do the same thing for anyone with a loan. Allowing one person to pay lower rate and applying standard rate to the rest is what will get your actions labeled arbitrary and capricious.

What does plan define comp as? If the Plan says amount received for services renderd after date of entry you have an issue to address. Prorating might work for estimate, but for acutal testing you will have to have the actual comp from date of entry.

Doesn't the TPA for the plan show the total and vested amounts on quarterly/annual statements. You didn't specify but I am guessing the is PS plan. As rcline pointed out the vesting was changed to max 20%/6yr.

Speaking to the fees in 401ks. There are the admistration fees - which you say the employer will pay. There might be audit, legal and other fees paid by the employer. There are investment management & 12b1 fees charged by the fund managers - YOU will pay those. The plan could use expensive funds to reduce the cost of admin fees paid by employer. What you need to look at is the expense ratio of each fund offered. If there is index fund the expense ratio should be low. Compare the expense ratios of the funds to funds listed - pick up a copy of Money, SmartMoney, Kiplingers Personal Finance, or try sites like Yahoo finance, CNNMoney personal finance, or Motley fool to find articles on how to evaluate the fees.

When anyone shows up with bad address we serch immediately. First a quick check - if person is recent termination from company we call the location they worked at and ask local HR to see if friends/family know where they moved. We quickly solve many bad addresses that way - we get friend/family to ask them to call us and give us updated address. If we don't find them on the inital search we add them to the the list and search for them on about quarterly basis. The data bases we use also will give family members and other information. We have sometimes sent letters to children and parents asking them to have the participant call us. We don't do a specific number and stop looking. We do cut the search for them to annual if we haven't found them in five years.

Someone will have to be named as sponsor if the legal entity sponsoring the plan will go out of existance. The entity that sponsors the plan now will have to name a new sponsor - that person/entity would select Trustee. The sponsor could act as both sponsor and Trustee to wind up the plan and make the final distributions and filings.