"For the 'evicted from principal residence' category, would an uninhabitable house qualify? I have a participant whose septic system needs repairs. Without a septic system, the house will be considered uninhabitable and they will have to move out (albeit temporarily)."

"If a bankruptcy trustee is involved in the abandoned plan termination (at the initial stage, until a QTA is chosen), can those fees be added to reasonable expenses to be paid out of the pension assets (under the abandoned plan regs) or does the trustee only get paid as 'trustee time' paid through the bankruptcy proceeding (where comp is statutorily determined by a formula based upon money disbursed)?"

"I have a pension plan that is terminating. A number of assets in the plan are LLC's that are near worthless, but not easily sellable. The question is what is the best option to remove these assets from these plans before it is terminated."

"I've seen various opinions on this. One is that for purposes of DEFERRALS ONLY, (not employer contributions) the 'less than 20 hour exclusion' is no longer valid at all, and therefore all employees must be allowed to defer under the universal availability rule, absent another valid exclusion category. Another is that the 'less than 20 hour' exclusion is still valid for deferrals, EXCEPT for LTPT employees. In other words, someone who works only, say, 6 hours per week could still be excluded for deferral purposes. I'm not 100% sure which is correct. From a practical standpoint, since most plans (of ours, anyway) don't use the 20 hour exclusion anyway, it isn't a giant problem for most small plans regardless. Thoughts?"

"Some individual-account retirement plans that provide participant-directed investment lack designated investment alternatives. Instead, each participant gets a securities account with a bank or a securities broker-dealer. Trade lingo calls this a brokerage-window-only plan. According to an ERISA Advisory Council report, 'BWO' is mostly with small (< 100 participants) plans, and especially plans with 'fewer than 25 employees.' A brokerage-window-only plan calls the plan's trustee to open and maintain a securities account for each participant. Although the trustee is the account's holder, the participant instructs the broker-dealer on what securities to buy, hold, or sell. An automatic-contribution arrangement sometimes requires a plan's administrator and trustee to act for a participant who does not communicate (other than by not counteracting an automatic-contribution notice). About a broker-dealer's account-opening forms (or anything needed to maintain an account): Does anything require a signature from the participant? Does anything require information about a participant that the plan's administrator lacks? Will a broker-dealer open an account if the individual's profile information is incomplete? Did some brokerage-window-only plans have, before any I.R.C. Section 414A condition, an automatic-contribution arrangement? Did it work, or have there been difficulties? If your clients include brokerage-window-only plans that have a Section 401(k) arrangement (or will have one by 2025), do you expect difficulties in setting up and maintaining securities accounts for those participants who neither opt out nor affirmatively enroll?"

"A Plan has a short plan year running from 7/1/2022 through 12/31/2022. For the 5500 filing, an auditor's report was not attached and the 'it will be attached to the next Form 5500 pursuant to 29 CFR 2520.104-50' box is checked. For the 1/1/2023-12/31/2023 5500, I figured that we would attach the auditor's report, which would cover the full period running from 7/1/2022-12/31/2023. However, they also want us to file an amended 2022 short year return and attach the auditor's report. From what I can tell, an amended return isn't necessarily required for the 2022 short year, just that you have to include the auditor's report with the 2023 return. Thoughts?"