"We have a 401k plan that covers several companies part of a controlled group. The plan is not top heavy and is not a 401k Safe Harbor. All employees of all companies are eligible for 401k and match, but PS component excludes one classification of employees (which is mostly HCEs). The PS contribution is allocated on the grouping method. Because most of the non-excludables are HCEs, it handily passes 410b. May one of the companies make no profit sharing contribution for its employees as long as 410b and the general tests under 401a4 passes? I was running projections and forgot to allocate a PS to one of the companies and yet all my testing showed PASS. I believe the gateway test is not including that missing company because they didn’t receive a 401a benefit, which I think is correct, but it just seems too good to be true that I could not benefit one whole company (while they are deferring and receiving a match)."

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"Over the past ten years I've been helping my disabled mom through a very ugly divorce. While it should be long over, her ex has popped up and said that he would like her to give up her survivor benefit (he works for the USPS) and in its place he would get a $25k life insurance policy on himself with her as the beneficary. I'm assuming this is not in her best interest in any way, and is full of loopholes, but I'm trying to figure out as much as I can. Per the QDRO she's entitled to the 'maximum survivor annuity benefit based on your Federal service.' Though it also states 'the AP is awarded a former spouse survivor annuity under the Federal Employees Retirement System in the same amount as the AP has been receiving or would receive as her share of the P's retirement benefits under paragraph 6a'. (She's entitled to 9.6% so he has noted that this pro-rata share would be 55% of $384 (9.6% of his monthly retirement benefit.) Either way, I'm guessing it's better than a random life insurance policy? Any advice or feedback?"

"I'm a pretty junior TPA (I've been doing this for about 3 years) and while I've learned *a lot* I recognize there are things (probably many) that I still don't know. This is one of those things. I was asked to do a profit sharing calculation on a plan that is just starting up. It's a calendar plan year with the first year being 2019. This plan has fairly average eligibility rules all around (18, 1 year of service being 1,000 hours, dual entry) but the business was not started until 7/6/2018. Not surprisingly, most everyone won't be eligible until 1/1/2020. Now the way the census is looking the two owners have a Date of Hire of 7/6/18 and most everyone else has a Date of Hire of 7/20/18. I was asked to write in a waiver of eligibility for the Profit Sharing source for employees employed on 7/6/18, which obviously will only be the owners -- meaning they'll be able to receive a profit sharing contribution allocation in 2019 and everyone else will have to wait until 2020. This should pass testing (it's a fixed class based pro-rata) as long as the owners stay under 25% of the payroll. I suspect this is fine, but it feels discriminatory in favor of the owners in terms of the waiver of eligibility. Is this something that should be questioned?"

"I have a question regarding 401K rollovers from a previous employer to a current employer: I have $50K of funds in my previous employer's 401K program that I want to rollover to my current employer's plan. $40K of the funds are Taxable and $10K are Non-Taxable. I have the option of rolling over the total ($50K) to my current employer but also have the option of rolling over the $40K Taxable to my current employer and getting the $10K Non-Taxable distributed directly to me. If I were to pursue this option of rolling over the $40K Taxable to my current employer and getting the $10K Non-Taxable distributed to me, would I be on the hook for any early withdrawal penalties/additional taxes on the $10K once I cash the check? I understand it would be beneficial to roll the Non-Taxable over, too, since I confirmed my current employer's plan would accept it AND I wouldn't pay taxes on it later but I could also use the cash right now."

"We have an employee who is looking to voluntarily default on his $50k loan that he initiated in 2018. He's paid back about $15k but now says the payments are too much and he'd like to stop payments and have the remaining amount defaulted and treated as a deemed distribution. The employee is still contributing to the 401(k) and receiving match. He also has about $12k he can take as a distribution. The participant is 67 years old. We've talked to our general counsel and they've informed us that we should allow the voluntary default because the employee resides in California. The IRS doesn't seem to keen on allowing employees the opportunity to circumvent the law. Has anyone heard of this?"

"Does the son-in-law of the owner get attributed the ownership percentage of father in law? I have daughter as HCE based on Dad's ownership."

"An organization wants to give retirees a monthly allowance to help them pay for medicare premiums. This is a not-for-profit organization that wants to provide a specific dollar amount to former employees that meet the 'retiree' criteria. They currently make a monthly deposit into each retiree's bank account. Is this the proper way to do so?"

"H & W were divorced on July 16, 2019. W was awarded 1/2 of H's cash balance pension and 401(k) plans. I was retained by the attorneys to draft the DROs. I did so and submitted them to the plan administrator for preapproval on October 9, 2019. Minor changes were requested; they were made and the orders were resubmitted. Preapproval letters were issued on November 25 and December 9. The court approved the QDROs and they were submitted to the PA for processing. The PA now wants another minor change in both QDROs. Normally wouldn't be a problem, except for resubmitting them to the court, which PA requires. I just learned that the AP died on November 25, so her signature is not available for the revised QDROs. My thought is to made the requested change but keep the QDROs otherwise as drafted. The only form modification would be to have the personal representative of the AP's estate sign in the place of the AP. Does this sound like a reasonable solution?"

"I'm going to preface this by saying I know almost nothing about Puerto Rico rules. So if someone has a primer resource that they think has the answer -- please let me know. Question: Existing U.S. mainland plan, owner only. I am unsure of entity type, but I suspect it's an LLC. Don't know which state. The owner/business is moving to Puerto Rico and wants to keep the Would there be any changes? Is this something that is going to be so complicated I should refer them to a different company? What things should they (or I) be aware of?"

"I have a plan that amended the vesting schedule effective 1/1/2018 from immediate vesting to a 2/20 vesting schedule. An employee was hired 9/2017. She was eligible 1/1/2019 (1 year 1000 hour eligibility with 1/1 & 7/1 entry). Does she fall under the old vesting schedule because of her hire date, or does she fall under the new because of her participation date?"

"Client has a 401(k) that does a discretionary match. They have matched for January and part of February of 2020 already. They failed ADP for 2019 so want to do a Safe harbor going forward. Under the SECURE Act, can they amend now to do the 3% Non-elective for the remainder of the year (as of the date of adoption of the SH plan)? If so, do they perform ADP test for the months they had the normal match or do they pass for 2020?"

"Client is a one-physician office, wife manages the office. SH 401(k) Plan provides the SH NEC 3%, but has last-day rule for PS allocation. 8 NHCEs, 2 of whom terminated during the year, so they get the 3% in addition to their deferrals, but no PS. I pass coverage at 75% but I can't get through the gateway because all the terminated are getting is 3% instead of the 5% needed for the gateway. I need to allocate 2% to them to get through the gateway using ftwilliam basic plan document. Can I use an 11(g) plan amendment to allocate that 2% for 2019?"

"We have a plan that has different eligibility for deferral and Profit Sharing Sources. The compensation for both is defined from date of entry. Let's say a participant becomes eligible for deferrals on 1/1/2019 and for the profit sharing source on 7/1/2019. Let's say the compensation from 1/1/2019 to the end of the year is $100,000 and from 7/1/2019 to the end of the year is $50,000. The company allocates 5% to this participant for a Profit Sharing Contribution, so the participant receives $50,000 * .05 = $2,500. However, when performing the General Test, is it the $100,000 compensation that's used or the $50,000? The DATAIR documents have a separate definition of compensation for 'Plan Compensation (including for Elective Deferral purposes)' and 'Compensation for Non-Elective Contributions' and I'm wondering if Plan Compensation means that it's the compensation used for all testing (including General Test)."

"I presume the 50% QPSA is the floor and raising it to a 100% QPSA is not an issue via an amendment to the DB plan. Agree?"

"A situation has arisen where a plan has determined that a participant had been overpaid in her pension benefit payments. The plan intends to recoup the overpayment by asking the participant to agree to have amounts deducted from prospective pension payments over several months. Is there a specified percentage limit of pension benefit payment that must be applied in determining the maximum amount that may be deducted from the participant's prospective pension payments? If so, what is it and what is the statutory or regulatory citation where such limitation can be found?"