Blinky the 3-eyed Fish

My opinion is you have a problem making this change. Plan operations are affected by the switch to the yield curve so you have yourself a material change.

Yes, that's exactly the reason. This warning won't impede the filing. As for the other bolded "errors", they are because you aren't attaching the attachments in Relius, but probably are doing it in Webclient. If you attach them in Relius, they will go away along with the other attachment warnings.

I never did understand his rationale and haven't ever considered it in my calculatons. Sure COLA increases were amendment bases under the old unit credit method, but actual amendments? I think not.

Since the 401(k) deferrals have no bearing to arrive at the gross figure (net earned income), if testing on net compensation you should exclude it. The formulas to arrive at net earned income are designed to equal that figure with compensation in a corporation. Excluding it too arrives at that equality.

I personally would never use age last. Participants always receive a lower distribution amount almost every time under that method versus an age nearest method. Keep in mind the 415 regs apply to 415 calculations only, but yes, what you said. So if someone was born 6/7/1950 and it's 5/5/2010, they would be 59 10/12. Outside of 415 I personally use age nearest month. I feel that it's accurate enough to actual age without causing any timing issues that a more specific timeframe would cause.

Required? No. A good idea to get brokerage statements IMO? Yes. Not sure how you ever correctly completed either the EZ or 5500 without more accounting information than just EOY values. 2009 EZ no longer needs that info though. Remember too you have to compute a ROR calculation to determine what the credit balances are. You will need more information than just EOY values for that.

So if someone is age 49.8 are you assuming they are 49.0? Other than the 415 regs stating you use age month last, no.

Do you really need to though? It's his/her signature after all certifying to the results. One thinks that if the client is harmed by his mistake, they have recourse against him/her to recover damages.

Only by completely going against what the IRS has consistenly said on this subject.

The forfeiture is irrelevant in the nondiscrimination testing. You count the whole contribution that he received. If you want some comfort, know that if he was re-hired, his forfeited contribution would be reinstated automatically. As an aside, IMO well drafted documents do not forfeit accounts in the year in which a contribution is allocated.

We used to send out detailed valuation reports once the valuation was done. Many are EOY vals. The biggest obstacle I have found is not knowing whether or not they will use the PFB to reduce the contribution or not, which of course can affect the shortfall base. To keep consistency in how we do work, we switched to sending out a simple letter with the min/max and will follow up with a valuation report when we prepare the annual filing.

It becomes a non-amender and needs to go through VCP to be legitimately okay. If you submitted it in May, you should be sued for ineptitude. It's a non-amender that has now asked the IRS to place them under Audit CAP and pay them a larger fee than through VCP. They wouldn't review the off-cycle filing unless it somehow met one of the exceptions for off-cycle review. Someone can chime in what they are and where they can be found. See previous answer.

If it's past 180 days and the balance is over $200, there is no statutory right to just pay them out. A new set of elections are needed. If the balance is under $200 (and the prior distribution was in a previous calendar year), then I see no problem just paying them out again. Same for if within 180 days.

I didn't think that was the way it worked. I thought you only consider the transition percentages when determining if a new base is created and how much that base should be. You don't wipe our prior bases until the actual shortfall (ignoring transitions) is zero. I stand corrected. Funny thing is I went back on my notes and I knew this once. Then I forgot. I am not old enough to be senile just yet.

For a 1/1/09 val, you only consider 94% of the FT. $100,000 * 94% = $94,000. $110,000 less $15,000 is $95,000 so your 2008 base is wiped away. But let's say it's 2010 and you consider 96%, then no new base is established but your prior year base remains. It's a nonsensical result, but it's the way the regs read, for now.

I disagree with everyone. Ok, just kidding, I agree too. I am such a sheep.

How about neither. First, you definitely test the DB plan after applying the offset. That is part of the DB formula and thus must be considered. Secondly, you can permissively aggregate the plans for coverage and nondiscrimination, but that is an option. Most general tested DB offset plans will need permissive aggregation to pass.

The cost of adding a lump sum feature is bigger than a breadbox and half past a monkey's butt.

1&2. Yes to both. 3. Because of the SHNEC contribution, the general testing includes all that met the 1 year eligibility requirements. The HCE is included in the tests.

If the plan language agrees, certainly they can be allowed to re-elect to take a lump sum now. It is an election though and not something that can be forced. So if they don't want to change, then an annuity must be purchased.

I feel like we are going back and forth over sillyness. If you have compensation over and under the twb as I mentioned before, there is no basis to do it any other way than separately. As I said before, 99% of the time it's moot which way you do it, you get the same results.

In that case you could impute in both plans as long as you didn't exceed the overall limits, just like you could if you had 2 safe harbor formula DC plans. I my examples I silently assumed you got to the max imputing one plan.

We probably are talking semantics here, but as Andy points out, how would you do the calculation if the plan years were different and there was different compensation? One could have compensation in excess of the twb for one period and not the other. That's why I see no other way than to impute in one plan or the other. You get to the same result 99% of the time, but that 1% is Andy's world I suspect. Of course.

The aggregate allocation rates are the sum of the rates determined separately under each plan. So when imputing permitted disparity, seems to me you just do it for one of the plans, and add the two together. You know under the (a)(4) rules as referenced by 1.401(a)(4)-9(b)(2)(iii) that you can't impute permitted disparity for both plans. I don't see anything that dictates that you have to impute permitted disparity on one plan or the other. I would imagine you need to be consistent for all participants, but I didn't look closely enough to know for sure.

Yes, I did see that, thanks. Looking for Tom Poje to chime in. Tom, it's your time to shine.