"Logistics of the situation: -- PBGC Plan, S Corp, Involves testing, Plan Eff date is within the last 5 years (for purposes of 436 restrictions) -- 2025 Valuation completed (signed report but no SB) by prior Actuary, BOY Valuation, AFTAP over 100% certified before September 2025 -- After takeover, decided to redo the 2025 valuation and valuation date changed to End of Year. No other assumptions changed. Automatic approval for change to end of year due to Revenue Procedure 2017-56 Section 4.01. Do I need to re-certify the 2025 AFTAP or can I rely on prior Actuary's AFTAP and use it on the 2025 SB? To clarify, the 2025 valuation report is expected to be recertified in next few weeks (say 6/15/2026). So, if I cannot rely on prior Actuary, will the AFTAP restrictions apply until certified? Thanks!"

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"We are in the US and the employee in question works in the US. We use the safe harbor hardship definition. This participant was originally hired in 2017 but had two small periods of non-employment (1-3 months) before being rehired in 2019 and working uninterrupted since then. They are applying for a hardship withdrawal to prevent eviction from their 'primary residence'--which is in Australia. I vote not to approve. Any thoughts?"

"Is it common to send COBRA participants as of prior eoy who no longer have COBRA a copy of the prior year SAR? One client is resistant."

"Two corps have the same owners and are a controlled group. Instead of opening one DB Plan to cover both corps, two DB plans were set up. One DB plan for each corp. One owner was placed in plan A that covered him and the employees of corp 1 and the other owner was placed in the plan B that covered him and the employees of corp 2. [1] Owner 1 in plan A was supposed to take an RMD from plan A. Inadvertently took the RMD from plan B. Is this an issue, or since this is a control group, the plans technically cover both entities? [2] What if owner 1 in plan A for a few years deposited his contributions into plan B, Inadvertently?"

"29 CFR Section 2530.206(c) states that '(c) Timing. [1] Subject to paragraph (d)(1) of this section, a domestic relations order shall not fail to be treated as a qualified domestic relations order solely because of the time at which it is issued.' We all know what this means or do we. It certainly means that a QDRO can be entered for the benefit of the Alternate Payee if the Participant had died before a QDRO is approved. But does it also mean that the estate of the Alternate Payee can obtain a QDRO if the Alternate Payee dies before a QDRO has been entered? We know this means that, with respect to defined benefit an defined contribution plans, a QDRO can be entered in favor of an Alternate Payee if the Participant has died before the QDRO was approved. But can the Alternate Payee's estate obtain a QDRO when it is the Alternate Payee that has died before the QDRO has been entered and you are dealing with a ERISA qualified defined contribution plan?"

"I've been doing this for what seems forever and I've started to think maybe I should be working for myself. Does anyone have any leads or are aware of someone wishing to sell their TPA practice in the near future?"

"I'm an Enrolled Actuary working in pension consulting and I wanted to share a project I've been building: ZAP Tools, a free and open source pension valuation suite targeting US single-employer defined benefit and cash balance plans. Perhaps due to my younger age, I find current legacy solutions reasonably clunky and dated to execute work in, so this is my good faith attempt to build something modern for all pension actuaries and retirement professionals.

"The suite consists of two components: an Excel add-in for light valuation work, benefit calculations, and plan design modeling, and a full desktop application for formal funding valuations. The full actuarial engine is complete, the Excel add-in is production ready, and the desktop application is in active development with a public release targeted for later this year under the AGPL license.

"One design decision worth highlighting for this audience: every expression in the desktop application, benefit formulas, participant filters, data validation logic, uses standard Excel syntax. No proprietary scripting language to learn while maintaining maximum flexibility in defining plan provisions or benefit formulas.

I've posted more detail and screenshots on LinkedIn and Reddit for those interested: LinkedIn Post - Reddit Post ... Always interested in feedback from practicing professionals."