"I have a plan participant that is requesting a hardship distribution under the down payment for purchase of primary residence. When evidence was requested, it turns out that it is for down payment and rent for a home that the participant will be leasing. If I am not mistaken, in order to qualify for a hardship distribution, the amount requested must be necessary to cover costs directly related to the purchase itself and not a deposit and first month rent. Is there any wiggle room for leasing other than for reason of eviction?"

"DBP with limit on lump sums (PVAB < $50k) In a separate interest QDRO, would this apply individually to the participant's and AP's respective portions or to the pre-split benefit in total? Checking if the plan's QDRO provisions have any exceptions to that LS limit, but looking for opinions in case there are no exceptions. I can see both sides -- AP is treated as a separate participant with separate benefit, so apply separately, but the flip side is if total PVAB is >$50k, say $80k for example and participant can take a $45k LS and AP a $35k LS, then the plan will have been forced to pay a LS total on the one (albeit split) benefit in excess of the plan's $50k limit."

"Having informed a small business owner who plans to retire in 2024 that they cannot start a pension plan for 2023, contribute for 2023 and 2024, then retire and terminate the plan, since there is no long term intent for the plan and it would create a significant audit risk of disqualification, she is asking if she can instead create a 401k/ps plan for 2023-2024. I feel like the answer is the same, but I'm really not sure if the risk exposure is as great as if it were a pension plan."

"Client missed filing Form 5500 SF in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. According to the DOL's current penalty of $2,670 per day, the total penalty could come out to over $7m -- the IRS penalties would be almost $500k. We can't use the VFCP (at least not without permission) because we've already been told by the DOL that we are delinquent. This is not a big plan. A $7m penalty would be WAY more than the plan is even worth. What should our expectation be?"