What defines a retirement plan account?

[AndyH]

New DB plan set up and client funds corporate contribution into an ambiguously defined savings account.   What makes this a retirement account or not?    Is intent relevant?  Is it automatically not a valid deposit if the account was identified in the name of the business owner (and later corrected)?   Or does it specifically need to be identified in the name of the plan or owner as Trustee?

[Bird]

If the same account is fixed by retitling it, I'd be less worried than if it was fixed by transferring from a wrongly titled account to a properly titled one.  I'm not sure I'd be that worried about the latter anyway; I guess it depends on just how ambiguous or not it was, when it was fixed, how the financial institution had it coded in their system, etc.  

In any event, I'm not sure there's much to do other than fix it, give a warning, and move on...

[david rigby]

Is there a trustee?  Does the trustee control the account?

[AndyH]

1 hour ago, david rigby said:

Is there a trustee?  Does the trustee control the account?

The trustee is the owner of the business.  I don't yet have all the specific facts; I was merely told second hand that contributions from a startup plan 2 years ago were deposited in an account in the name of the owner temporarily (but still not changed).   But the deposits were reported on a prior SB.  (Takeover, naturally).  Just trying to anticipate the various avenues for moving forward.