I left a company in September 2017. Their practice was to pay Safe Harbor non-elective payments to 401k plans the year after service. I contacted them recently to find out when the contribution would be made to my 401k plan for my 2017 service and they told me that no further contributions were expected to be made into the account. So essentially I received no contribution for my 2017 service. My question is, what recourse do I have in this situation? I checked my SPD and the only verbiage I could find on the payment is the following:

"Your Employer will make Safe Harbor Nonelective Employer Contributions to all eligible Participants who are Non-Highly Compensated Employees if you were eligible to participate in the Plan during the Plan Year.

These contributions satisfy certain Internal Revenue Code requirements and eliminate the need for the Plan to perform certain non-discrimination annual tests. You will be 100% vested in these contributions when made. These contributions may be distributed under the same circumstances which allow your Deferral Contributions to be distributed (i.e., death, disability, separation from service, and termination of the Plan without the establishment of a successor plan) but you may not request a hardship withdrawal of these contributions. In addition, prior to the beginning of each Plan Year for which this election to make Safe Harbor Nonelective Employer Contributions continues to apply, the Plan Administrator will provide written notice to you describing your rights and obligations under the Plan and informing you that the Plan may be amended during the Plan Year to provide that the Employer has elected to make a Safe Harbor Nonelective Contribution of at least 3% to the Plan for the Plan Year."

What are annual requirements necessary to qualify for Safe Harbor Nonelective contributions? I would think service through September should be sufficient. Is it a percentage of the year worked, or something else?

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We have several health and welfare plans that are unfunded (benefits paid solely from general assets with the exception of employee contributions). We have one attorney who says a SAR is not required, due to Technical Release 92-01 -- i.e., that employee contributions paid to the carrier within 3 months are not plan assets. Another attorney disagrees, and says that despite Technical Release 92-01 the SAR is required because it's not funded 100% from general assets. I have not heard back from the DOL's Office of Regulations and Interpretations.hat do you think?

Are federal work study students considered "employees" and eligible to join the 401(k) Plan? The document does not specifically exclude this group. These individuals while they are working for the employer are "students" and are not eligible for any benefits offered by the employer. I am trying to locate some regulation/guideline that provides these individual are not considered employees for purposes of the plan.

Employer has a policy whereby tipped employees pay health insurance premiums by check (because income fluctuates and they may or may not have enough to deduct from one pay period to the next). Employer has a Section 125 plan. Can a tipped employee's wages and tax withholding be adjusted so that the impact on the employee is the same as if the premium were deducted from pay pre-tax? The answer is a clear "No", right? I don't think it's a 125 issue as much as a tax withholding/reporting issue. It seems to me that the employer must accurately report all wages paid and the premium amount is wages paid, even if the employee writes a check back to the employer for premiums.

I have a WRAP document that lists the following plans in Exhibit A as being part of the WRAP:

• Group Health Plan -- A
• Group Health Plan -- B
• Group Health Plan -- C
• Group Dental Plan
• Group Basic Life Plan
• Group Voluntary Life Plan
• Group AD&D Plan
• Group LTD Plan

This is a large plan (10,000+ participants). The Group Health Plans are funded through a VEBA trust. This results in the plan needing to file Schedule H and have an IQPA audit the plan. The other plans (Dental, Life, etc.) do not flow through the VEBA (but they are part of the WRAP). The employee portion of the premium is withheld and remitted to the applicable insurance companies as would be done in a fully insured plan. As far back as I can see (10+ years), the Form 5500 Schedule H and the auditor's financial statements have only reported assets and activity related to the VEBA trust. My understanding is that they audit the plan as a whole, but the financials only cover the Trust. The question has come up this year as to whether or not that is the correct way to prepare the Schedule H and Financials. Should the other plans be included too? I do not believe it would affect the "balance sheet" portion of the Schedule H because the fully-insured benefits would have a net-zero affect, but it would potentially affect the "income statement."

This is a husband and wife plan. The husband is an adopting employer. They're getting a divorce that will be effective November 2018. The wife would like the husband to begin setting up a separate plan. Can the husband adopt a plan in the same year in which he's already an adopting employer of an existing plan? Or would it best to make his plan not be effective until 1/1/2019?

(I originally posted this topic in the VEBA message board, but was not able to get much input. I'm hoping someone will see it here, and provide advice/guidance) I have a WRAP document that lists the following plans in Exhibit A as being part of the WRAP:

• Group Health Plan - A
• Group Health Plan - B
• Group Health Plan - C
• Group Dental Plan
• Group Basic Life Plan
• Group Voluntary Life Plan
• Group AD&D Plan
• Group LTD Plan

This is a large plan (10,000+ participants). The Group Health Plans are funded through a VEBA trust. This results in the plan needing to file Schedule H and have an IQPA audit the plan. The other plans (Dental, Life, etc.) do not flow through the VEBA (but they are part of the WRAP). The employee portion of the premium is withheld and remitted to the applicable insurance companies as would be done in a fully insured plan. As far back as I can see (10+ years), the Form 5500 Schedule H and the auditor's financial statements have only reported assets and activity related to the VEBA trust. My understanding is that they audit the plan as a whole, but the financials only cover the Trust. The question has come up this year as to whether or not that is the correct way to prepare the Schedule H and Financials. Should the other plans be included too? I do not believe it would affect the "balance sheet" portion of the Schedule H because the fully-insured benefits would have a net-zero affect, but it would affect the "income statement". Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.