To help employers properly administer their 401(k) plans, in 2022, Foley & Lardner LLP is authoring a series of monthly “401(k) Compliance Check” newsletters. This article discusses the process for addressing situations where an employer improperly excludes an employee from participating in the employer’s 401(k) plan.
In last month’s 401(k) Compliance Check #2, we discussed the importance of timely depositing participant contributions in your plan’s trust or custodial account after deferral elections have been made and amounts deducted from eligible pay. In this month’s Compliance Check, we discuss what to do if an employee is not provided with an opportunity to enroll in the 401(k) plan or an employee’s election is not implemented at all.
The failure to provide an enrollment opportunity or to implement an employee’s election are operational failures that put a 401(k) plan’s tax qualification in jeopardy. Luckily, these types of compliance failures are generally easy to self-correct through the Internal Revenue Service’s Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (sometimes referred to as “EPCRS”).1
Identifying an exclusion or election implementation error can be a reactive or proactive exercise. An employee may contact the employer to inquire about why they were never provided with an opportunity to enroll in the 401(k) plan or why their election has not been implemented. Or, the issue may be caught on a plan...
GB News presenter Alex Armstrong and right-wing social media commentator Bernadette Spofforth have apologised and paid substantial damages to Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali after falsely sug...