"I am opening an individual 401(k) retirement account in relation to my self-employment income (where I am an independent contractor). The Individual 401(k) plan is intended for businesses that do not employ any common-law employees. I employ a household employee (my nanny) to take care of my children. She allows me to go to work but she does not work for my business. Is my nanny considered a common-law employee? Or do I qualify for opening the retirement account?"

"I work at a small company (less than 10 employees) that's an S Corp. -- I help with running the benefits program here. We provide group health insurance for our employees and pay $450 towards their premium. However, one employee would like to purchase his own insurance just for 2020 and get reimbursed the $450 pre-tax. I don't think it would be discriminatory because this employee is not highly compensated, not an officer, and is in a department of his own. (Maybe could classify this benefit based on that?) I've done a lot of research and it sounds like reimbursing one employee is allowable based on IRS Notice 2015-17: 'Code § 9831(a)(2) provides that the market reforms do not apply to a group health plan that has fewer than two participants who are current employees on the first day of the plan year. Accordingly, an arrangement covering only a single employee (whether or not that employee is a 2-percent shareholder-employee) generally is not subject to the market reforms whether or not such a reimbursement arrangement otherwise constitutes a group health plan. If an S corporation maintains more than one such arrangement for different employees (whether or not 2-percent shareholder employees), however, all such arrangements are treated as a single arrangement covering more than one employee so that the exception in Code § 9831(a)(2) does not apply. For this purpose, if both a non-2-percent shareholder employee of the S corporation and a 2-percent shareholder employee of the S corporation are receiving reimbursements for individual premiums, the arrangement would be considered a group health plan for more than one current employee.' No other employees would be reimbursed for health insurance premiums; they're all being covered through the group plan. It doesn't sound like this will get us in any trouble, but I'm concerned I could be missing something."

"Three person plan -- Dad, Mom and Daughter only. Daughter working in UK and apparently in a plan for the UK company where she makes deferrals. If she also worked from Mom and Dad Co. in U.S. this year, is there any impact on her U.S. plan deferrals based on her deferrals into a U.K. plan?"

"We sold our ESOP company in early 2018. The Plan has been terminated with the IRS. We have an independent Trustee who chose to distribute 80% of the sales proceeds to all participants in 2018, but withheld 20% for unanticipated expenses (like a mini-escrow). The question is, is the Trust required to process RMDs for 2019 on a terminated plan?"

"Can a non-electing church plan require that only full-time employees are eligible for all contributions, even if that means that some employees working more than 1,000 hours are EXCLUDED? It seems permissible, but I just want to be sure...Also, I am seeing some old coverage rules that may indicate that they need to cover 70% of their total number of employees? Is that applicable?"

"If you have late deposits in a MEP from several participating employers, who is responsible for the excise tax? The plan sponsor or the individual employers? Anyone know where to find any guidance on this?"

"Can someone comment on the attached shortfall summary. It seems that my outstanding balance in 2018 is less than the sum of the annual charges. Don't see where my calc went wrong!"