Author: Maria T. Hurd, CPA

One 60-Day IRA Rollover Per Year Is The Final Answer

March 18, 2015

Although the Internal Revenue Code trumps IRS Publications, practitioners tend to use the Publications as the initial resource when handling day-to-day tax issues.

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What Goes in the Denominator? Complying with the Allocation Rules for Distributions from Qualified Plans With After-Tax Accounts

March 03, 2015

Compliance starts with understanding. Understanding the rules set forth in Notice 2014-54, assisted us with the application of the rules in a situation in which a participant was entitled to take a distribution from his after-tax account only, in a qualified plan that provides and separately accounts for:

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Qualified Plan Distributions: IRS Issues Guidance on Allocation of After-Tax and Pretax Amounts

February 11, 2015

Lack of clarity causes frustration. The topic of how to properly allocate the pretax and after-tax amounts attributable to distributions from qualified plan accounts that include Roth 401(a) accounts or after-tax accounts has been a source of much debate in the retirement plan community.

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Fixing Common Plan Mistakes – Failure to Obtain Spousal Consent

December 02, 2014

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA The Rule When plans have a Qualified Joint and Survivor Annuity default form of benefit, or when a plan offers life annuity options, spousal consent must be obtained for any distribution or loan out of the plan, except when the plan provides for involuntary cash-outs for balances amounting to … Continued

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Special Section 457(b) Catchup for Government Plans

August 27, 2014

A benefit of 457(b) plans is that participants have the opportunity to contribute the maximum deferral contribution to both the 457(b) plan and another qualified plan.

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Avoiding the Hardship of Correcting Hardship Distribution Violations

August 12, 2014

Administering hardship distributions correctly is important to prevent the hardship of completing a correction of an error in administration. Often, plan officials assume that their third party administrator is collecting all the information necessary for the approval and proper processing of a hardship, when that is not always the case.

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Unforeseeable Emergency Distributions from 457(b) Plans

July 30, 2014

State or local governments and organizations that are tax-exempt under IRC Section 501(c) can establish a 457(b) plan to allow their employees to defer income taxation on retirement savings, similar to how the more popular 401(k) plans operate, but with some important differences, including the availability of hardship distributions.

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The Basics of Partial Plan Terminations

June 18, 2014

When employer-initiated personnel reductions occur and it reduces the number of plan participants by 20% or more, a partial termination of a qualified plan is deemed to have occurred.

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Fair Value: Why it Matters for Participant-Directed Accounts

June 04, 2014

Pursuant to the Form 5500 instructions, plan sponsors must enter the current value as of the beginning and the end of the plan year on the Schedule H: Statement of Net Assets Available for Benefits.

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Qualified Plans Should Not Hope to get a Qualified Audit Opinion

May 21, 2014

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA As a result of recent changes to the AICPA-approved language for audit reports, unqualified audit opinions will no longer confuse plan sponsors and service providers who associate the word qualified with compliance. New accounting pronouncements have changed the phraseology used to indicate the plan’s financial statements are not materially … Continued

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Belfint Lyons Shuman is a Certified Public Accounting (CPA) firm that audits Defined contribution plans (profit-sharing, 401(k), 403(b) , 401(a), 457(b))), and Defined benefit plans (pension and cash balance), and Health and welfare plans. We serve a variety of plan sponsors including for-profit, nonprofit, governmental, and Taft-Hartley collectively-bargained plans located in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Massachusetts, and nationally. For additional information contact us at info@belfint.com