Dougsbpc

Suppose you have a one participant plan that has a plan year that begins 9/1/2012 and ends 8/31/2013. If the plan terminates 2/28/13, the participant has 10 years of participation, maximum average salary and is age 65, would his 415 dollar limit be $17,083? Thanks.

Suppose you had a 12/31/12 profit sharing plan that added salary deferrals and safe harbor match features effective 10/1/2012. The employer will fund the SH match after December 31. They will not make any profit sharing contribution. The SH match of course will be based on salary deferrals from 10/1/12 - 12/31/12. Will it also be limited to salary from 10/1/12 - 12/31/12 or could it be based on salary for the entire year? Thanks

Suppose you have a profit sharing plan where one of the participants had no contribution or forfeiture allocation. Can that salary be used for the 25% deduction limit? I think not. Does anyone agree? Disagree? Thanks.

We administer a Profit Sharing Plan that had 7 participants for many years. All were terminated back 3 years ago. Partial plan term so all were made 100% vested and paid all their benefits. For the past 3 years, only the company owner who is also trustee has remained. No contributions have been made in the past 6 years. They just sent us the year end information and investment statements showed the withdrawal of all assets throughout the past year. Upon asking the owner (and only remaining participant) where the money went and he replied "my pockets". He mentioned that he never contacted us because he needed the $400k and felt no need to go through us for the "nonsense" of benefit elections and withholding etc. Besides the considerable problem of no tax withholding, are there any other problems? He is willing to pay all taxes and pre-mature distribution penalties.

It was the fault of the trustee, who also happens to be 100% shareholder of the corporation that sponsors the plan. Also, it was his personal account that the $100k was mistakenly transferred to.

Thanks all for the replies. Not sure why this one would need to go to counsel. I agree in cases where the excise tax would be a high number or involve a complex transaction. In this case it was an honest mistake and the account it went into only earned .21%. The excise tax will be less than $400.

A trustee of a small 401(k) plan with pooled investments moved $100,000 from bank A to bank B. He himself had a personal account at bank B and $100,000 of plan money mistakenly went into his personal account. This was not caught until a year later. They will transfer the funds back to the plan account with proper interest, file 5330 and pay the excise tax on the prohibited transaction. Section 4975 indicates that the disqualified person who engaged in the prohibited transaction is responsible for the excise tax. However, the definition of disqualified person could also include the plan sponsor, fiduciary etc. Should he personally pay the excise tax or should the plan sponsor? Thanks.

A 401(k) plan with 20 participants terminates 7/7/2012 because the plan sponsor is being bought by another company. The buyout deal falls through 11/2/2012. The only action that has taken place is that a resolution and amendment have been executed to terminate the plan. Could they just adopt a new resolution and amendment to activate the plan or must they go through with the plan termination then adopt a new plan a year from now? Thanks.

The regulations state that the most valuable accrual rate should be based on the increase in the participant's most valuable optional form of benefit, and further, that the most valuable optional form is determined by calculating the normalized QJSA associated with the accrued benefit. (1.401(a)(4)-3(d)(1)(ii)) Does anyone believe that a lump sum would be the most valuable optional form of benefit if a plan offers a lump sum as an optional form of benefit? The difference in the most valuable accrual rate is substantial. Thanks.

Suppose you have a plan that was not frozen. Instead, the plan was amended to reduce the benefit formula a few years ago. As a consequence, most full time participants have not accrued additional benefits over and above their grandfathered accrued benefits for the past two years. All will next year as the new benefit will exceed grandfathered benefits. I would think participants would be entitled to a 415 dollar limit increase for the two years when they did not have an increase in their accrued benefit. This because they would have met all the requirements to accrue a benefit for those years. Anyone agree / disagree? Thanks

Suppose you have a safe harbor plan that deposits safe harbor employer contributions more than 2 years after 8 1/2 months after the plan year end. Along with going through VCP to make up the late contributions, are they able to take a deduction in the year the contributions are deposited? Thanks

Suppose you have a safe harbor 401(k) plan. An Employee participated in the plan for several years, then she terminated had a distribution and returned to work 3 years later. However, she returned under an excluded class of employees. Normally, she would have re-entered the plan the day she was re-hired. Can she be excluded by class under a safe harbor 401(k) plan? I would think so as long as the plan passes 410(b). Anyone agree / disagree?

Suppose you have a calendar year DB plan with a one year service requirement and dual entry dates following completion of eligibility requirements. Suppose the plan is amended to have two year eligibility and dual entry dates. Must employees who met the prior eligibility requirements be eligible, even though they had not entered the plan by the time it was amended? Thanks.

It is my understanding that the funding relief interest rates will not be available to a plan that is using the full yield curve. Agree? Thanks

I believe employer contributions to a profit sharing or 401(k) plan must be funded in cash correct? In other words, if a company has non-related stock (basically an investment), they cannot use that investment to fund the plan correct? Thanks

We have a client that sponsors a small 401(k) plan. Back in early 2010 they mistakenly deposited 401(k) profit sharing contributions to SEP accounts. They had not contributed to the SEP since 2006. They started the 401(k) plan in 2008. I would think they should be able to write the mutual fund company a letter indicating that these were mistaken deposits and to please transfer these amounts to the 401(k) plan. It turns out that they have the same fund company for the 401(k) plan. Does anyone agree/disagree? Thanks

Thanks for the replies. It is interesting, with all the IRS plan audits we have had over the past 20 years, we have never been asked to provide corporate resolutions and have never had a problem.

We recently took over a 401(k) plan and generally received excellent information. However, there was one amendment executed a few years ago that did not have a corresponding Corporate Resolution. Is the amendment valid? Thanks

An S-corporation sponsors a 401(k) plan. The plan covers 2 employees including the 100% shareholder. The corporation pays medical insurance premiums for the shareholder. These premiums do show up as income in box 1 of the shareholders W-2 but not in box 5 (medicare wages). The plan defines wages as W-2 salary subject to code section 3401(a). We believe plan salary (less than $100k in this case) should only be wages subject to withholding at the source (i.e. box 5) Does anyone disagree and believe the taxable premiums need to be part of plan salary? Thanks.

Tom, No employees have ever been able to defer as it was a profit sharing plan until now. If eligibility for salary deferrals was 1,000 hours, the 5 part time would never have met those requirements. Not providing contributions to the part time is the employer's decision. It turns out that the part time employees would ordinarily be independent contractors (indeed even competitors of the employer). A few of the jobs they get are not possible with independent contractors, this is why some of them are on payroll and these are the part time employees.

Suppose you have a small profit sharing plan with 10 participants. 5 are full time and 5 are part time (under 1,000 hrs). The plan allows all employees to be eligible upon being hired. In the past, profit sharing contributions were provided to all employees (full and part time). They now want to amend the plan to be a 401(k) plan and require 1 year of service of 1,000 hrs for all sources. They also want the plan to have a safe harbor match and only want to provide the safe harbor match from now on. Since the 5 part time employees have never worked 1,000 hours, they would not have met the eligibility requirements for the new salary deferrals and safe harbor match. I believe rev. ruling 2004-13 also indicates that a safe harbor match would make a plan exempt from the top heavy minimum as long as no employer contribution (other than the safe harbor match) is funded for the year. Also this determination is made on a year by year basis. It appears that in this case, the part time employees will not be able to make salary deferrals, receive a safe harbor match or receive a 3% top heavy minimum. Does anyone agree / disagree?

Small traditional Defined Benefit plan will terminate in about 4 months. The plan document contains an alternate form of benefit choice of "Single sum distribution of a portion of the vested accrued benefit". This is not further described in the document. This seems to indicate the plan could offer an alternate form of benefit that would allow a distribution of a portion of a benefit paid in the form of a lump sum and the remaining portion paid in the form of an annuity. We have never had a plan sponsor want to offer this. Is this possible? Thanks.

To make a long story short, we administered a DB plan and 401(k) plan for a client for about 7 years. They left us for 2 years but the new administrator completely dropped the ball and did nothing during those two years. They came back to us. We noticed that incorrect distributions were made to a terminee back two years ago. It looks like the plan sponsor just took the PVAB from our 2007 report that was not based on 417(e). In any event, we recalculated her benefit and will have the plan distribute the additional $10,000 to her. In addition to the DB benefit underpayment, they overpaid the same participant $5,000 from the 401(k) plan. Can the DB plan reduce her benefit by the $5,000? Thanks.

Yes he will have worked more than 1,000 hours from 7/1/11 - 6/30/12. We propose the termination date be 6/30/12.

Suppose you have a 1 participant DB plan for a small profitable employer with a 6/30 plan year end and 1,000 hour requirement for benefit accrual. The plan existed for 4 years until benefits were frozen a year ago. Upon restating his plan on April 1, 2012 we unfroze the plan per his instruction effective for the plan year 7/1/2011-6/30/12. Now apparently he lost his largest client and wants to terminate the plan. If the plan were terminated effective 6/30/12, could he accrue a full year of participation for 415 dollar limit purposes for the year 7/1/11-6/30/12? Thanks.