Fee paid from Owner's account only

The owner would like us to take the Cycle 3 restatement fee from the plan. The plan document allows us to take this type of fee from the plan. However she (the owner) has indicated that she wants the whole fee to come out of her account only and not across the board from the participants accounts. Is this permissible, can we take the fee from her account only? The document doesn't address this unfortunately.

That sounds like a nondiscriminatory manner, so it might be okay in the document/trust language.

Agree this should be OK. I mean owner (company) could pay directly outside the plan so why not incur the entire cost to herself inside the plan? I can't see a DOL auditor insisting that the owner has to spread the fee to NHCEs as well, but one never does know what rigid irrational rule applications lurk in the minds of labor laborers!

RaiCMC just out of curiosity, from a tax perspective, and future retirement income, why would the owner want to reduce his/her account without an tax benefit, as opposed to writing a business check and taking a reasonable business expense tax deduction?

9 minutes ago, ErnieG said:

RaiCMC just out of curiosity, from a tax perspective, and future retirement income, why would the owner want to reduce his/her account without an tax benefit, as opposed to writing a business check and taking a reasonable business expense tax deduction?

Maybe he has little or no taxable income this year would rather pay the expense out of an account that will one day be subject to taxation.

What provision in the plan allows him to do that?  Do any of the underlying documents say the plan administrator can pick and choose the accounts the fees come from?

that said, i looked through our BPD and I only see that the administration fees can be paid against the trust.  Nothing about specific apportionment that I can see.

I think the fact that it is non-discriminatory is too little reason to say this is fine.

You have to follow the plan's provisions.   I doubt there is a plan provision that says fees can be taken from any given participant's account only.   If a case can be made saying it can be done based on a plan provision fine but in all the decades I have read plan documents I have never seen a  plan's allocation provision that says this can be done. 

This is plan admin 101 here.   It has to be both legal AND in the plan document not just merely legal for a plan to do it.  

Is there even a nondiscrimination test for fees?

1 hour ago, ESOP Guy said:

It has to be both legal AND in the plan document not just merely legal for a plan to do it.  

I believe too many people think, "oh, it's only negatively affecting the owner or HCE's, so the DOL will be ok with it."