Art of the Qualified Plan Audit

Imagine you come home from school after graduation and you see your mother beaming with a huge smile on her face. She asks to see your diploma (a certificate of completion in this example) and you oblige and move on to show your father the same.

Financial advisors on TV and financial publications in reputable papers and magazines consistently encourage people who participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan to contribute as much as possible. In many cases…

When I was younger my little sister would come to the park with my friends and me. One day I was walking back with my friends and realized I forgot my sister who was left playing with friends.

Welfare plans such as health, life insurance, dental, vision, short and long term disability plans, among others are generally a combination of unfunded and fully insured.

Despite the relief retirement payroll managers and retirement plan officials may feel from this most recent sprint to the finish, THE RACE IS NOT OVER. Get that second wind and verify that deferral withholdings that employees have trusted you to put in their retirement accounts were actually deposited to the plan, without exception.

As explained in Timeliness of Deposits, the Department of Labor (DOL) has set deadlines for which salary deferrals must be deposited into the plan. If these deadlines are not met, a prohibited transaction under Section 4975 will have occurred and Form 5330 must be filed and excise taxes paid for each year or part of the year that the prohibited transaction is outstanding.

In a time when nonprofit organizations are facing higher demand for their services with fewer financial resources available to them, maintaining compliance with the ever-changing landscape of regulatory requirements is becoming increasingly difficult.

Plan sponsors who are signatories to collective bargaining agreements agree to make contributions to their employees’ unions’ benefit funds, which generally include a welfare plan, a defined benefit pension plan, and a defined contribution annuity fund, among others.

Much like people who make a wish to be fit with the turkey wishbone after a Thanksgiving feast, many plan sponsors think that their INTENT to be a safe harbor plan is a sufficient defense when they have not met the requirements to be a safe harbor plan.

CPA firms that perform employee benefit audits can voluntarily join the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ EBPAQC (the Center).