Minimum Gateway and 414(s) Comp

Plan is as follows: 

401(k) - 1 month of service and monthly entry

Profit Sharing - Age 21 - 1 YOS - Quarterly entry

The plan is top heavy. 

1) Can I use the comp while a participant in the profit sharing portion of the plan for the minimum gateway testing *(both 414(s) and 415) even though people not eligible for the profit sharing are receiving a TH min on the full year comp? 

2) For Relius users:  If the answer to #1 is yes for the comp while a participant, does Relius define the compensation for the gateway testing properly or does it have to be overridden? 

3) If I have a person hired on 11/14/2016, they are not eligible for the profit sharing (until 1/1/2018 so he has no eligible profit sharing compensation for 2017), but they get the TH min, what compensation do I use for the gateway test? 

4) Related to #3 above:  At this point, I am using full year comp as I do not have any comp while a ptp in the profit sharing portion.  FYI - They are in my stat employee group because I am using the plan entry option as I need the younger people to help pass the rate group testing.  (If I used the stat entry method, the younger group would be put in the OEE group and the test would fail.)

I think your point 3 is probably the best guide.

he received the top heavy so he now needs the gateway. but if you based it on profit sharing comp he has no comp and then all you can do is bang your head against the wall. Based on a situation like that, I think you have to use the least stringent eligibility definition for purposes of comp. And if you had someone else that was eligible for part of the year for profit sharing, it wouldn't make sense that person only received gateway from date of participation based on profit sharing, because his gateway would be 'less' than the person who wasn't eligible for profit sharing. (in some ways this is no different that testing controlled groups and using least stringent eligibility)

Of course you could treat him as otherwise excludable and assuming no HCEs in that group then no gateway needed, but you indicated that doesn't work for testing.

as for Relius, there is DER and prior participation amounts that could be entered. since the plans we run satisfy any comp definition (e.g. we don't exclude bonuses, etc), we have always plugged the prior participation under bonus and in plan specs uncheck the boxes so the comp isn't used for allocations except for top heavy, but I think you have to override in census. but since it is generally  only one or two people that it pertains to, we never worried about that. one of those, which takes longer to do - set up a DER and enter pre participation comp amounts or simply override.

Thanks Tom for replying.  So for the plan, the person in question in #3 has an entry date into the 401(k) of 1/1/2017 and an entry date of 1/1/2018 for the profit sharing, I should use the 401(k) eligible comp for the gateway?  If that is the case, then I still have the same probme as the 401(k) comp is the full year comp?  If not, I can put the entire comp amount in the prior to participation comp fields but then he will have zero eligible comp for a variety of purposes including the gateway and 401(a)(4) testing.  Should he just not be included in the gateway and the 401(a)(4)testing? 

One other thought:  I have done some research and I have not found anything definitive regarding determining the Statutory Employees on a money source basis.  IN other words, I see nothing preventing me from defining the Stat Employees differently for 401(k) versus profit sharing.  So if I am using the plan entry method, I see nothing preventing me from using the monthly entry dates when performing the coverage and ADP testing and the quarterly entry dates when performing the coverage and 401(a)(4) testing on the profit sharing.  In this case, he would be a stat employee for the 401(k) and an OEE for the profit sharing .  Have you seen anything like this?  Do you know of any definitive guidance that would prevent me from doing this? 

hopefully you have the ERISA Outline book sitting in your back pocket (assuming you have an extremely large back pocket)...

if you know the right place to look.....

I don't think you will find it under nondiscrim testing. however under Coverage

Chapter 8  Section VIII Part B 6 gives a discussion on the topic.

otherwise excludable employee disaggregation is separately elected for each disaggregated group.

basically a plan with 401k, 401m and nonelctive could have anywhere between 3 and 6 test depending on how you test things.

and since you have to test nondiscrim the same way you test coverage then you have to be able to run the tests on a money source basis as well.

but I didn't think that would work in your case if the young person is treated as OE for profit sharing purposes because you need him for the rate group.