Divorce was final 20 years ago. ALL marital assets including all retirement funds were properly divided at the time of divorce, and wife waived all rights to all post-divorce properties in Divorce Decree. Husband remarried 17 years ago, and established a new 401K account (and ERISA fund) with a new employer 5 years ago. The new wife is the designated and statutory beneficiary to the 401K. ERISA does not allow husband to change beneficiary without the new wife's written consent. Ex-wife now is suing husband for alimony owed to her and the court awarded her the entire balance of the new 401K. Ex-wife claims that she is the "former spouse" under the QDRO exception and is entitled to the entire balance of the new 401K, although the new 401K is a post-divorce asset and the new wife is the beneficiary. The new wife objects on the basis that this 401K is her marital asset and the Ex-wife has no right to take it. Is Ex-wife a "former spouse" to this 401K or simply a "creditor." What does "former spouse" mean for purposes of the QDRO exception?

I've understood that the IRS, when it comes to coverage testing interprets 1.410(b)-4(b) such that a plan that has everyone in their own group/classification will be considered to have "substantially the same effect as an enumeration by name" and as such, it's not a "reasonable" classification and the plan must pass the ratio percentage test instead. That's fine, but is there any written guidance stating this? For some reason I'm unable to locate any. Do you know of unofficial IRS pronouncements to this effect at recent ASPPA conferences, etc? I've seen reference to an indirect interpretation of the issue from back in 2001, but I'd sure like to find something more direct and more recent.

A retirement plan's sponsor would like to amend its ERISA-governed plan to restrict distributions to preclude a check and allow only a direct deposit to a distributee's bank or other financial institution account? Would such a provision be contrary to any required provision of ERISA's title I? Would such a provision tax-disqualify the plan under Internal Revenue Code section 401(a)? Why?

Business (A) sponsors a plan. (A) is part of a controlled group with (B), (C) and (D). (B), (C) and (D) are signed on as participating employers. Now the owner of (A) sells (B), (C) and (D). Effective 12/31/2018. Terminates plan effective 12/31/2018. Distributions to the employees of (B), (C), and (D) have already been processed. No distributions have yet been made to employees of (A). Owner of (A) now purchases businesses (E), (F), and (G), so is a controlled group. Wants to establish a new 401(k) plan. This is clearly a successor plan. More than 2% of the employees were participants in the former plan. Just to confirm, if a new plan is established by (A) and the rest of the controlled group members, this taints the distributions of deferrals already made to employees of (B), (C), and (D), right? (A) could set up a SEP or a SIMPLE-IRA, any solutions I'm missing?