"An auditor friend of mine was reviewing an audit report for an ERISA 403(b) plan. The assets are held by VOYA and Equitable, and are listed on the audited financial statements as Pooled Separate Accounts. His question was that he was of the belief that 403(b) plans cannot invest in PSA's; the investments must be in mutual funds or annuity contracts. Researching this over the weekend led me to believe him. In reviewing the Equitable report, it appears that each participant has their own unique "contract number". Therefore his and my question is whether the investments with Equitable are appropriate for a 403(b) plan."

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"Under our QDRO procedures, under a child support order, the participant is responsible for taxes owed on the QDRO distribution. Normally, we give the participant the option of either (1) paying the tax amount out of pocket or, (2) increasing the distribution in an amount needed to cover the taxes. For example, if the QDRO awards the AP $100, we can either distribute the $100 to the AP and have the participant pay $10 (10%) out of pocket, or we increase the distribution to $110 so that $100 can go to the AP and $10 can cover the taxes.

We recently received a child support order that awards the AP 100% of the participant's account. Clearly we can't increase the distribution to cover the taxes. Do we just send the participant a demand for payment to cover the taxes? What happens if the participant refuses to pay?"

"Client has requested an amendment to reduce the maximum allowable loan amount to 50% of vested balance, but not to exceed $25,000. Client also wants to reduce loan repayment period to 3 years. Can these elections be made and the loan still satisfy 72(p)?"

"Sent docs for 2021 plan year 5/31/2022. They were executed on 6/3/2022. I now get word that they made the deposit on 5/23/2022. What's wrong with this picture, if anything? Am I being paranoid that they opened an account without a plan document and also without an executed plan document?"

"Client is a small company with a 401k plan. Current employees are owners and one of owner's children. Last non-related employee terminated in 2018. There is a small forfeiture of $1,500 in the plan. No participant has had any income after 2018. There are no unpaid fees, and no income to base an allocation on. Allocating forfeiture based on account balance has been mentioned, but I don't see how that would work since forfeiture allocations are annual additions, and 100% of the participants income is $0... Any ideas other than revising 2018 to allocate the forfeiture?"