"Good afternoon. I think this is a silly question, but I just wanted to make sure I'm not overthinking it. I know the Gateway for a Cash Balance/DC Combo Plan is 7.5%. An employer can give more than that, correct? The owner actually isn't taking a Profit Sharing contribution for himself. He'd like to give the employees a little bit extra (about 10% into the Profit Sharing). I just wanted to make sure that wouldn't cause an issue (I don't think so, since he's being more generous, but maybe I'm overthinking it)."

"I did a VCP Submission for my client and submitted it June 10, 2022. I have dutifully been calling the VCP "check the status" line every couply months or so, and continue to get the message that "the case has been assigned to an agent, don't call us back for at least another 60 days." I knew the IRS was behind, but are they really a YEAR behind? Anybody else with recent experience using VCP?"

"A participant has an expense that is due immediately that would qualify under a safe harbor hardship distribution. Since payment is due, like, right now and they pay it with a credit card, can they use a hardship distribution to reimburse themselves for that cost?"

"I thought I was right on this, but I'm looking at what the prior TPA did last year and it doesn't match up, so now I'm questioning myself... MEP has immediate entry for deferrals and statutory (1 YOS/ semi-annual) for SHNEC and PS. This particular adopting employer is top heavy by percentage but is choosing to only do the safe harbor this year. This makes them exempt from the TH minimum, correct? As in, those who are eligible for the deferral only (like those hired in 2022) don't need to get any allocation. Just like any single-employer plan. I was pretty sure of this until it came back to me that the TPA who did this calc for 2021 gave the 2021 hires a top heavy minimum for 2021 because they are top heavy (and they also did not do any profit sharing in 2021). To me, that's an error and I don't intend to repeat it, but I figure I'd better double-check, so... is there something MEP-specific that I'm overlooking? Thanks."