MJ Hartman

does anyone know what could happen now that NW has bought up Provident Mutual?? Will the provident products (selector k funds/administration servicing) fall into the state of nationwide ppa terroritory? I realize this transition will take a year or two but it would seem that there will be some fall out from this purchase somehow.

I have another question. In reference to the first three years of a new plan; if a plan was started in 2001 could they get 2 years of tax credits (in 2002 and 2003) or does this tax credit only apply to plans newly established in 2002 and beyond?

who is "the old plan?" is it your investment advisor, or trustees of the plan? are you a trustee with investment authority? are you concerned about your fiduciary responsibilities as a trustee or are you trying to determine who is responsible for transferring the accounts back into the stock accounts without your permission? Your use of the term "old plan" is confusing.

a 5310 is not required to be filed for a terminating plan. Unless you believe there is an absolute reason to file; ie the business being sold or liquidated, I don't think you're risking an audit by not filing a 5310. In fact most of the audits that I've seen lately were triggered by late deposits of 401k deferrals or after an audit was done by the DOL. update the plan for GUST, etc. and you should be okay.

the issue of a company "going under" came up in a meeting last week. A participant has a rollover balance from a company currently in bankruptcy court. She has received 75% of her balance but has been told that since the co. is in bankrupcty court she has to wait for the remaining 25% until things are settled. This goes against what I understood with qualified plan assets and trust protection. She said that none of her account was in co. stock, just standard mutual funds. Is this situation common or even allowed. this is in ny state.

thank you for all of your comments. I spoke with an ERISA attny in town and his first response was to get documentation from the employer showing me removed as a trustee from the plan. I have since done that and also provided in my letter to the other trustee inconsistencies with what I saw in the updated documents that did not comply with work done on the 401k plan for 1999 year end info; specifically the eligibility dates being changed from immediate to 1 year of service. My main concern is getting documentation that I am no longer a trustee or responsible for any of these egregious errors.

After several attempts I have just received a copy of the 401k & mpp plan doc. from my former employer. As I was a plan trustee and did the 1999 y.e. calculations for both plans I was familiar with the plan's provisions as they applied to computation of er contributions and forfeitures. The plans I just received have been amended effective June 1, 1999 and "signed" Dec. 22, 1999. The 401k plan was previously a std. plan, now suddenly non-std w/ last day rule language and no loan provisions, which were present in the previous docs. I guess my first question is: are these docs legit. since I know for a fact they were drafted within the last 30 days to keep me quiet and back dated to when I was still an employee and plan trustee, never formally removed from either plan. Do I have any reason to be concerned that my trustee status could be in a fiduciary breach? I only left in Oct. of 2000 and these changes were never provided in a smm or verbally discussed by the owner of the co. Its pretty obvious that these plans were deliberately altered to eliminate 2 employees from receiving any 2000 plan year $.

my advice is to review the plan document. many times there is an option in the prototypes to elect hardship distributions available to terminated participants. this might be the case if there is a time requirement for distributions to terminees; ie a one or five year break in service prior to distribution. again this should be outlined in the document somewhere.

an employee recently left a company and was provided distribution paperwork on request. after submitting the completed paperwork and a written request for distribution a reply was received citing distributions to terminees only occurred 60 days the close of the plan year in which termination occurred. this would be acceptable except that the owners wife rec'd her full distribution from the plan in aug after terminating from the co. in july. Isn't there something about that if a precendent has been set the trustee/administrator has essentially created a new policy requiring plan amendment/notification? how should the newly terminated employee proceed at this point?

we have prepared distributions from 2 plans of the same er, same ein # and included both plan names on the 1099. As long as the employer is the same and each trust has identical id#s there should be no problem. The 1096 would also contain both plan names. This eliminates double preparation and eases reporting for the IRS, the plan and the participant.