We were about to tell the plan sponsor that the hardship paperwork they'd sent to us looked good when one of our admins stumbled upon a GoFundMe page set up for the specific purpose of paying the bill that the hardship was submitted for. A very well-supported GoFundMe page. If we tell the Plan Administrator, they're just going to ask us what this means, and should they approve it or not. On the one hand, one could argue that there is no longer a financial need. On the other, there's no real proof that this was set up by the participant in question and that the money will actually get to the participant (Internet scams abound). The hardship form has a certification that the participant has no other funds with which to pay this bill; it was signed by the participant. Maybe it was signed before the GFM page was created, or maybe it wasn't fully-funded at the time so they were looking to make up the rest via the hardship -- I don't know. Our consensus is that no auditor would look this far into the situation -- they'd review the distribution form and the payment in the light of the proposed regulations and everything would be fine. No IRS agent is going to do an Internet deep dive on this, or at least we don't think it will be in their training in the next three years. Has anyone else thought about this, or come up with a policy?

Participant terminated during the year he turned 55. Normally he'd have a Code 2 for the distribution but because he has Roth funds in the account, the code would be B2. If the funds have been in the account 5 years or more, my understanding is that he would not be subject to the 10% penalty on the earnings (because he was terminated in the year he turned 55), but that he would be required to pay taxes on the earnings (because he's not 59-1/2). Agree?

Are multiemployer health and welfare plans subject to the Americans With Disabilities Act?

Are HSA payments to an employee included as 'compensation' for 401(k) ADP testing purposes? The plan's definition of compensation is wages as defined by Code section 3401(a), with no exclusions.

A small engineering firm has a 401k plan. They are showing an operating loss for the 2018 year. The plan sponsor would still like to deposit a discretionary PS contribution. The plan document clearly permits it. But (although details are not clear) he has a contract with the state of New York for some/all of his business which states in part that there can be no PS if no profits. I am recommending legal counsel for this, but I'm wondering: would an ERISA plan document take precedent over this sort of state contract?

Original notice of audit was for tax year 2015 with the usual suspects/IDR's for an ESOP audit. This original notice was back in late 2017. We just received a new follow-up IDR (Jan 2019) asking for additional info for tax years 2016, 2017 and 2018 Question: I recall (but can't cite right now) reading that the federal government can expand audit tax years to a year prior (2014 in my case) and one year after (2016) without any additional notice. Has anyone else respond to an IDR saying the tax years are out of the original notice period? Can you provide any cites to authorities? Or does that just prompt the auditor to issue a new notice for the tax years in question?

Form 1095-C's instructions say that an employer must file a Form 1095-C for each employee who was a full-time employee for any month of the calendar year. So if an employee was not employed an entire calendar month, then they wouldn't get a Form 1095-C? Assume the employee was regularly scheduled to work 30 hours per week, was hired on 5/16/2018, and was terminated on 6/20/2018 (during the 90-day waiting period). Don't give this individual a Form 1095-C?

Participant want to take ISWD of $50,000 from his Roth 401k account. He is over age 59-1/2 and has met the 5-year rule on his Roth contributions. When the money comes out, must it be split between basis and earnings? It should be non-taxable because he's met the requirements, so is there any reason we need to determine the amount of the earnings attributable to the amount being distributed?