Art of the Qualified Plan Audit

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Every year, retirement plan audit season starts in early April, shortly after discrimination tests are complete and audit packages for the more straightforward plans become available. Human resources managers, payroll managers, and chief financial officers at the plan sponsor collaborate to provide the auditor with payroll, personnel data, … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA The New Law The SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement) changed the age at which non-5% owners who have terminated employment with a retirement plan sponsor must take required minimum distributions (RMD). Participants who reach age 70½ after 2019 must take their first RMD by … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Updated 3.26.2020 Children are a financial hardship!!! The IRS has finally recognized it by adding a new type of penalty-free distribution from defined contribution retirement plans: the Qualified Birth or Adoption Distribution (QBOAD), effective January 1, 2020. The new provision is optional, so plan sponsors will need to … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Large Plans Require Financial Statement Audits Generally, plans with at least 100 participants on the first day of the plan year must engage an independent qualified public accountant to perform an audit of the plan’s financial statements. The audit report, financial statements, note disclosures, and supplementary schedules are … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Inquiring minds want to know – Are the Bonuses In or Out? How Can I Withhold from a Gift Card?  It’s Not Cash! … and more … The Problem The use of an incorrect definition of compensation for contribution purposes continues to be listed as the most common … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Tips and Traps of Compensation: Part III – Double Jeopardy: No Match on Catch-Ups and No True-Up In our previous two blogs, The Trouble with True-Ups or Lack of True-Ups  and What’s the Catch with Administering Catch-Up Contributions, we went over the basic rules and potential pitfalls of … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Tips and Traps of Compensation: Part II – What’s the Catch with Administering Catch-Up Contributions? In the first part of our Tips and Traps of Compensation Series, we talked about The Trouble with True-Ups or Lack of True-Ups. Part II talks about administering catch-up contributions. Definition  of Catch-Up … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA Does your 401(k) or 403(b) plan auditor belong to the AICPA’s Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center (EBPAQC)? To demonstrate their commitment to quality in the performance of ERISA audits, 2,600 CPA firms, about a third of the firms that perform EBP audits, have become members of the … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA The AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Digital Badges: How can plan sponsors evaluate prospective auditors who are equally credentialed with digital badges?  Is your auditor a Jack of all trades, but a master of none? As the results of the DOL studies on audit quality shift the industry focus … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA, RPA What Auditors Don’t Do In our previous blog, Testing the work of a specialist in a retirement plan audit: how much expertise does the financial statement auditor need?, I explained that auditors cannot be expected to perform or completely re-perform the duties of other professionals, like the actuary, … Continued