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Company leaves control group, one employee stays with another member. SH question


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Posted

Company A sponsors plan, with Companies B, C, and D adopting employers as a controlled group. Calendar year plan. 3% Safe Harbor allocation.

On Oct. 1, 2015, Company B is sold. One participant leaves Company B and starts working for Company C. She made $75,000 for B and $25,000 for C.

The sponsor wants to know if Company C can pick up the entirety of the Safe Harbor for the participant. Or must the cost be proportionately shared between B & C?

QKA, QPA, CPC, ERPA

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.

Posted

Stock sale? Is Company B still part of the controlled group? I'm assuming, based on your question, that the answers are yes.

That being the assumption, I'd say that yes, since as co-sponsors of the plan, they are treated as a single employer for purposes of IRC 404.

Now, the accountant/controller, whatever, might possibly have some problems with that approach from a corporate accounting viewpoint - that's a separate issue.

Posted

The plan doesn't care, right, as long as it gets the required contribution? And if Companies B and C are both happy to have it as laid out, then they don't care. The IRS doesn't care either; they would just look at compensation and contributions received. Some hyper-technical accountant might say there was a transfer of liabilities from one company to another which might have some balance sheet implications, but the accountants I work with wouldn't care either.

So I say go for it.

Ed Snyder

Posted

B is no longer in the CG. My thought was that C would be getting a bigger deduction by contributing funds to the plan based on compensation not paid by the company. And B would be getting no deduction. It's only one person, but still...

QKA, QPA, CPC, ERPA

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.

Posted

B is no longer in the CG. My thought was that C would be getting a bigger deduction by contributing funds to the plan based on compensation not paid by the company. And B would be getting no deduction. It's only one person, but still...

Understood, but as long as C doesn't exceed a deduction limit, I don't see a problem (because no one cares...).

Ed Snyder

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