Missing Participant

[Randy Watson]

FAB 2004-02 gives administrators some relief in getting a missing participant's benefits out of a terminated dc plan. My question is whether the plan document has to specifically permit these kinds of distributions, or can a fiduciary rely completely on the FAB?

[chris]

I would think you would start with the plan doc. to see what your initial options are.

[Randy Watson]

My question is whether I need to add these options (IRA, state unclaimed property fund or interest bearing savings account) to the plan document prior to making the distribution.

[chris]

How will adding the language to the document affect your determination letter? Are you filing a Form 5310 with respect to the termination? If so, the IRS could bless the amendment during the course of the issuance of the determination letter regarding the termination. If you are not filing a Form 5310, then I guess you could amend the plan document with the language and hope that the IRS would not have a problem if they audited it...?????

[Randy Watson]

I don't want to amend it if I don't have to.

[chris]

Does the current plan doc. address what to do with a missing participant's account? The plan doc's we use have language addressing such a situation, e.g., certified letter to last known address, diligent effort to locate and contact participant......and if cannoyt find then forfeit the balance. In that regard, I recently sent a letter to the SSA letter forwarding service as well as the IRS letter forwarding service to be sent to a missing participant in an ongoing PSP. If your document does have such language, I would think you should follow the plan doc.. If your plan document is silent, then I don't see how you can make a distribution if the plan doc. does not provide for the method of doing so. In short, you would probably need to amend the plan doc......

[Randy Watson]

Yes, the plan does have the forfeiture language and some language about the letter forwarding program etc... Unfortunately, it does not address distribution options. I was hoping that someone would tell me that the FAB provides a complete safe harbor.

Thanks for your help.

[Guest Nautical]

Here are some additional ways to locate participants:

Also, have you considered contacting the SSA? If the address is not available from any other source, the plan administrator may contact the SSA for assistance in forwarding a letter. The request to forward a letter should explain the strongly compelling reasons for wanting to get in touch with the missing person. The letter to be forwarded should be in a plain unsealed, unstamped envelope bearing only the mising persons anme and social security number. If the social security number is not known, SSA will need the date and place of birth (or names of parents, etc) and even last know address and on top of that employment period. The request should be sent to the manager of the local Social Security office.

We had to do this once and we were successful because the individual was paying into the social security system and they had a current address on this participant. Also, one last thought, are they dead? Maybe you did a death check as well. www.rootsweb.com is Free. Heck, I found 10 people by looking up their name in google and also white pages. I just started calling people that had a similar name, scary, but I did find them!!!

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Post office "change of address records"

Credit Report has address or current employer

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Also here are some free sources for locating participants:

www.rootsweb.com (death index)

www.classmates.com www.reunion.com (resume has TVP highschool)

www.zabasearch.com (enter your name, many records have the individuals birth year)

[stephen]

You can also try:

Accurint