SEP available for comparable benefits ?

[JAY21]

I thought I saw this question asked before but couldn't find it.

Could a SEP that covers the staff employees in an Affiliated Service Group serve as an appropriate "plan" for purposes of receiving comparable benefits (contributions) when testing the other individual plans of the doctors under a combined permissive aggregation approach, or do the contributions have to be made to a qualified plan on the staff employees behalf ?

[Belgarath]

Well, if you are using an IRS model SEP, you would have to cover all eligible employees, under all employers in the ASG, under that SEP - you wouldn't be to carve out different groups. And it can't be used by an employer currently maintaining another qualified plan. So I'd say "no."

Without doing some research, I don't know whether such an option could be possible using a prototype SEP - my gut says no, but that's just the first impression.

[ScottR]

I believe SEPs are treated like other qualified DC plans for nondiscrimination testing. So yes, SEP contributions may be considered in 401a4 testing (IMO).

[AndyH]

From memory only, I remember a discussion of this a couple of years ago in the IRA Board where I thought the informed consensus was no, a SEP is not aggregated. I have not looked this up; this is simply from memory so i could be mistaken. But my un-researched reaction is no.

[AndyH]

Here is one.

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?s...SEP+aggregation