Art of the Qualified Plan Audit

Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 136 addresses the auditor’s responsibility to form an opinion on the financial statements of employee benefit plans (EBPs) subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). It also addresses the form and content of the auditor’s report issued as a result of a full scope or an … Continued

Not Enough RMD Participants must take an Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from retirement plans and IRAs. 403(b) plans often have more than one account in the name of each participant. While each 401(k) plan must issue its own RMDs, an individual can take one RMD distribution for the entire amount computed using the balances in … Continued

In its quest to Set Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement, SECURE 2.0 enhanced the Long-Term Part-Time (LTPT) rules of Secure 1.0 by making them applicable to 403(b) plans. Since employees are more likely to contribute to an employer-sponsored retirement arrangement than an Individual Retirement Account, and more Americans are working part-time since the pandemic, … Continued

Plan sponsors of retirement plans with hardship withdrawal provisions have come to realize that complying with hardship rules is sometimes a hardship. One of the most common questions we receive from clients involves the administration of the hardship withdrawal provisions. Changes from the SECURE 2.0 Act Luckily, the SECURE 2.0 Act in Section 312 has … Continued

Retirement plan administration is not a costless endeavor. Plan sponsors must administer the retirement plan following plan provisions, legislative requirements, and participant elections. To help administer the plan, plan sponsors hire service providers to help with recordkeeping, custody of assets, investment advisor tracking, and auditing the plan. Regulatory authorities want to promote retirement readiness with … Continued

Enhanced Correction Options: I Didn’t Know What I Was Missing! Mistakes happen…all the time, especially in retirement plan administration. For years, I have been thankful for the self-correction opportunities granted by the IRS Program, the Employee Plan Compliance Resolution System. With each update to the program, my clients would benefit from additional opportunities to self-correct … Continued

Posted by Christopher J. Ciminera, CPA, QKA Update – April 29, 2020 On Wednesday, April 29, 2020 the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) also posted a Disaster Relief Notice 2020-01. In this notice, the EBSA provides relief to plan sponsors regarding the possibility of lags in deposits due to the recent COVID-19 issues which was … Continued

Posted by Tyler Starr, CPA The passing of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the SECURE Act) at the end of 2019 included significant changes impacting qualified retirement plans. In fact, the retirement plan industry has not seen such extensive changes in one act since the passing of the Pension … Continued

Posted by Tyler Starr, CPA The IRS issued a private ruling on August 17, 2018, to allow an unnamed company to implement a new type of benefit for employees with student loan debt who were eligible to participate in its 401(k) plan. Prior to the private ruling, the company offered a 5% match contribution if … Continued

By special request, following is a summary of the basic available safe harbor formulas, with no extra editorials. See bullet points for information about enhanced match opportunities.