One of the participants in our 401(k) plan submitted a request for a hardship distribution for the purchase of a primary residence. On review of the supporting documentation, we discovered that the purchase has already occurred and that the requested distribution is to cover the cost of renovations prior to moving in.
One of the participants in our 401(k) plan heard from a friend that it is possible to take money out of a plan while still employed. I’ve always heard that age 59 ½ is the rule of thumb as to when in-service distributions are allowed, but this participant is only in her mid-40s. She has about $100,000 in the plan: $65,000 in employee deferrals, $25,000 in safe harbor matching contributions, and $10,000 in profit sharing.
I am the 100% owner of my company, and we have a 401(k) plan that allows all our employees to direct the investment of their own accounts from a menu of mutual fund options via our recordkeeper’s website. The plan has been in place for a while. Not only have total plan assets grown quite a bit, but I have personally accumulated a significant plan account for myself. I am considering using a portion of my plan account to invest in real estate. Most likely, I will purchase a rental condo.
DWC stays on top of what's trending, and our self-proclaimed pension geeks often offer their insights in industry publications. As we transition into the fourth quarter the theme has been, "What Plan Sponsors Need to Know." Get caught up with this month's round up:
Our company has quite a few employees who only work a few hours each week. When we setup the 401(k) plan, we wanted to allow all our employees to save, so we set the eligibility requirement at the first day of the month following an employee’s hire date. Unfortunately, hardly any of our part-timers are contributing, and it has become burdensome and expensive to keep up with all the notices we have to provide each year to people who don’t even have accounts in the plan.
Our company sponsors a 401(k) plan for our employees. The owners of the company have always been somewhat secretive in terms of sharing detailed information about themselves and their families. The current environment of selling information for marketing use and identity theft has only intensified that.
While it might not seem like that big of a deal if 401(k) deposits are made a couple days or weeks late, the Department of Labor (DOL) considers those payroll withholdings to be plan money on the deposit deadlines regardless of where the money is physically located. To the extent those monies are still in the plan sponsor’s control, the delayed deposit is treated as a prohibited loan of plan assets to the plan sponsor, which is a very big deal (not in a good way). If that wasn’t motivation enough to fix the delinquency, the fact that late deposits must be reported on the Form 5500 each year until fully corrected (which is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, only the bull here is the DOL) certainly should be motivation to fix it. Pronto!
Our company sponsors both a 401(k) plan and a cash balance plan. One of our employees is a strong supporter of a local charity. She does not have a spouse or children, so she would like to name the charity she supports as her beneficiary for both of our retirement plans.
Our 401(k) plan provides for a matching contribution of 50% of the first 6% deferred by each participant (for a maximum match of 3% of pay per year). We deposit the matching contributions to the plan each pay period at the same time we deposit employee deferrals. After year-end for the last couple of years, our TPA has informed us that we have to make “true-up” matching contributions, sometimes for employees who are no longer with us.
All of us here at DWC thrive on the really geeky stuff, and some of the best discussions start with Adam and Keith’s pontifications about how different topics impact our clients and our industry. We decided to bring the best of those conversations to you, still with a touch of geekiness but also distilled into easily digested, bite-sized pieces. Anyone can summarize a summary and call it commentary or analysis. But as always, our commentary is based on reading the actual rules, regulations, executive orders, and advisory opinions. - As originally published in our Q3 401(k) Q&A Update newsletter.
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