Union to Salaried Employee-Distributable Event?

[Guest Thornton]

A company maintains a union 401(k) plan and a salaried 401(k) plan. A participant in the union plan ceases to be a union member and becomes a salaried employee. Can he transfer (trustee to trustee) his balance in the union plan to the salaried plan? This doen't seem like a distributable event.

[MWeddell]

This is not a distributable event.

It's possible that both plan documents allow the participant to elect to transfer his or her account, so you'll have to check the plan documents for that language. It's not the sort of provision that is routinely in plan documents.

[KJohnson]

You might want to check out this prior discussion.

http://www.benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=3881

MWeddell--Do ou see anything wrong with a document that mandated plan to plantransfer as opposed to merely permitting the plan to plan transfer (of course assuming no 411(d)(6) cutback issues on OFBs or BRFs).