Art of the Qualified Plan Audit

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA Yes, the Audit Extends to Excluded 403(b) Employees: Testing Compliance with Universal Availability It’s never a good sign when an employer sponsoring a 403(b) plan says: “You don’t need to see backup for employees who are excluded from the plan.” Ohh! But we do! Not often, but sometimes, clients … Continued

Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 3 – The CARES Act In the last blog, we covered the remainder of the SECURE Act provisions. By itself, it changed the landscape of our play. But an unexpected storm came in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic creating a major cloud of uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic created … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA “Retirement readiness is important for everybody” – this is a statement that didn’t make it to the searchable lists of universal truths, but should have. The 403(b) plan regulations realized the benefits of inclusion a long time ago, providing that if any employee can elect to make elective deferrals, then … Continued

Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 2 – The SECURE Act…Continued In our last two blogs, we discussed the beneficial changes of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and Title 1 of the SECURE Act. But it doesn’t stop there because there were more changes included in the SECURE Act, which we will now discuss … Continued

Posted By: Maria Hurd, CPA Top Five Operational Errors of 403(b) Plans Oops! I did it again… No matter how hard we try, there are mistakes we are doomed to make again and again, even when we know the rules all too well. The reasons are valid, and they are countless: mindlessness, being in a … Continued

Posted by Maria T. Hurd, CPA Where have you worked, for how long, and how much have you contributed to the 403(b) plan? These are all the questions that make up the puzzle pieces necessary to compute each participant’s available 403(b) catch-up. Participants in a 403(b) plan can make an additional contribution once they have … Continued

Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA Act 2 – The SECURE Act In Act 1 of our play, Retirement Plan Legislative Update: Act 1 – Bipartisan Budget Act, we covered the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. This was positive legislation, but a major change to legislation was yet to come – the Setting Every Community Up … Continued

Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA  The world has gone through many sudden and unpredictable changes in the last few years. The retirement plan industry has seen many changes, as well, which has had impactful legislation and guidance that changed the retirement landscape in many positive ways. With all these changes, it seems the world and … Continued

Posted By: Maria Hurd, CPA Why Ask Why? Why should the rules that determine how and how much a person can save for retirement be different depending on whether the person works for a government entity, a nonprofit, or a for-profit employer? People are people, and their retirement needs are not different based on what … Continued

Posted By: Christopher Ciminera, CPA  On July 19, 2019, the AICPA Auditing Standards Board issued SAS 136 – Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements of Employee Benefit Plans Subject to ERISA. This standard was a long time coming. The AICPA worked with the DOL and other interested parties to create a new standard … Continued