"Does anyone know what the following means in the PPD document: Plan elects a 6 month eligibility (not consecutive and no hours required), elapsed time is not marked but actual hours is marked. The adoption agreement notes that this is passage of time and not elapsed time and no minimum hours of service is required. My question is do you still have to apply the 1000 hour in a 12 month period failsafe? How would any break in service provision work?"

"I have seen this issue in another post, however, it did not specifically address an owner only 401k plan. The employer is a Sub-S Corp with no other employees. The plan requires 1 year of service, 1000 hours with duel entry dates. Is there an exception for the owner's spouse to enter the plan without satisfying the service requirement? Or should I amend the plan to eliminate the service requirement and then re-amend it back if and when he hires a new employee. He is considering a new hire in the next year or two."

"We're a TPA/recordkeeper who works almost completely in conjunction with 3(38) advisory firms to provide plans. As it stands we don't do anything in regards to investment lineups on the plans, that's chosen exclusively by whatever advisor is the 3(38) on that plan. We're toying with the idea of creating a very stripped-down, basic 401(k) plan to sell as a 'plan in a box' of sorts for very small companies unable to afford our standard tier. One of the issues is that such a plan would require an investment lineup, and having an advisor with a bps fee on the plan doesn't seem ideal for this structure. We absolutely don't want to take on 3(21) / 3(38) liability, which is why we've never thought about this before. However, I've heard recently from some sources that 3(21) responsibility is triggered only if it's plan-specific advice given to a sponsor. Supposedly, I've heard that some record keepers are able to essentially say 'here's our standardized fund line-up, you as a sponsor can either adopt it or choose your own funds to use' and in doing so, the plan sponsor remains the fiduciary for 3(21)/3(38) purposes. Anyone have any further insight on this?"