A small company that currently doesn't offer any group health plan acquires the assets of another small company, along with 3 employees from that company. Those 3 employees had group health coverage and the acquiring company is continuing that benefit for them. Does the company have to offer group health coverage to its other employees? Can the company create different classes of employees and offer some classes but not others? Can the company have different employee contributory rates towards premiums (to be done through a 125 plan)? The company has fewer than 50 employees, and all the employees are NHCEs. The owner would not be included in the health plan.

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A and B are merging. B is the survivor. The transition rule states that acquisition or disposition could be a merger involving a change in employer of the employees. See this reg:

(f) Certain acquisitions or dispositions. Section 410(b)(6)(C) (relating to certain acquisitions or dispositions) provides a special rule whereby aplan may be treated as satisfying section 410(b) for a limited period of time after an acquisition or disposition if it satisfies section 410(b) (without regard to the special rule) immediately before the acquisition or disposition and there is no significant change in the plan or in the coverage of theplan other than the acquisition or disposition. For purposes of section 410(b)(6)(C) and this paragraph (f), the terms "acquisition" and "disposition" refer to an asset or stock acquisition, merger, or other similar transaction involving a change in employer of the employees of a trade or business.

So what exactly does a transaction have to look like to be considered a merger? In this case two medical groups are merging, with one becoming the survivor, but I don't think any money or stock is changing hands. If "merger" is a term of art, what would one need to know in order to determine if a merger has occurred?

DB Plan is frozen. Has a short Plan Year from 10/1/18 through 12/31/18. Plan has a shortfall of $100,000. For the purposes of minimum funding, does one pro-rate the shortfall amortization charge for 12/31/18?

We have a number of plans that use "End of Plan Year" for "F.3. Time of Payment (other than Death)" in the ftwilliam.com document. We want to waive that waiting period in cases of hardship. We propose to use "3.d." to write in the language from "b.(End of Plan Year)" followed by "Acceleration of timing allowed for cases of Hardship (per safe harbor rules)." My question: in order to use hardship as a criterion for allowing acceleration of distributions for terminated participants, must the plan allow hardships as an in-service distribution option? It was my interpretation that this section of the Basic Plan Document (Timing & Form of Payment -- Section 7.02, Article 7 is separate from Article 8 (In-Service Distributions and Loans).