401(k) employee contribution missed for 12/24/2014

[lbrenneman]

During the gathering of year to date compensation and contributions for the ACP ADP testing, it was discovered that 11 people had a prize that was run through payroll and had an employee contribution taken. There was also one manual check. This was done on 12/24/2014. This is not a typical payroll day so the payroll provider did not send the contribution file to the 401(k) provider. The grand total of the contributions is $148.00. Should we be filing a 5330? Will it trigger any red flags for the IRS? DOL?

[Kevin C]

If that is the only late deposit, i wouldn't file a 5330. If they could have reasonably deposited before the end of 2014, you would actually have two 5330s, one for 2014 and one for 2015. The amount involved for the PT will be the lost income and the excise tax is likely to be under $1. In cases like that, we have the client deposit the lost earnings and the amount of the excise tax in the plan, report the late deferrals on the 5500, but do not file a 5330. We had an informal discussion a few years back with the manager of our IRS region and she said she was ok with not filing a 5330 for a really small amount, but did note that we might have a zealous agent try to make an issue of it.