Employer 401k Audit?

[electronman1729]

Has anyone gone through their employer having a 401K audit? Curious about what this means. Is this something I should be concerned about?

[DenverGP]

Typically required for any plan with 100 or more eligible participants.

[spqrzilla]

If a company's 401K plan does not have participation from multiple income levels, it can lose its 401K status. In other words, the IRS is trying to keep upper management from having a 401K plan that only benefits them, not the mid / lower level employees.

[electronman1729]

If a company's 401K plan does not have participation from multiple income levels, it can lose its 401K status. In other words, the IRS is trying to keep upper management from having a 401K plan that only benefits them, not the mid / lower level employees.

Found out what this meant this morning. Looks like I'm getting most of my 2016 401k contributions back.

[Gman]

Found out what this meant this morning. Looks like I'm getting most of my 2016 401k contributions back.
Whoa. What about the potential growth of those contributions over the past year? Is your company's 401K program managed by an investment group, like Fidelity?

[Batteriesnare]

Found out what this meant this morning. Looks like I'm getting most of my 2016 401k contributions back.

Would be very curious the cause of this - sounds like there was some dickery going on...

[Skip]

Found out what this meant this morning. Looks like I'm getting most of my 2016 401k contributions back.

Audit = normal.

This? Sketchy. Did you over contribute or is everyone get all of their contributions back? Are they going to correct your W-2?

[electronman1729]

Audit = normal.

This? Sketchy. Did you over contribute or is everyone get all of their contributions back? Are they going to correct your W-2?

Getting back, half of my money. Didn't over contribute, but I typically try to make sure I hit the max limit every year.

What has me mad is all I got was a phone call from my hiring agency and no detailed explanation about why I'm getting this money, and none the less how it will be taxed.

[electronman1729]

Whoa. What about the potential growth of those contributions over the past year? Is your company's 401K program managed by an investment group, like Fidelity?

Principle which is absolutely worth less, luckily I still have my own Fidelity, from my previous employers

[Bailey Guns]

Can you just roll it over to your Fidelity account?

[brutal]

Principle which is absolutely worth less, luckily I still have my own Fidelity, from my previous employers

I did very well with my Principal 401K account since 2009, picked some heavy winners. We rolled over post acquisition from Mass Mutual that I'd been in since 1992. Took the hard hit 2008 but recovered nicely.

New company is rolling it over to Schwab. They automatically picked "matching" risk categories. So far, I'm not impressed. I'll probably have to tweak it some and the small correction didn't help things, but we'll see...

[Skip]

If you're below/at your contribution limit, they really need to explain this to you. I'm really curious just hearing it second hand!

I'd also be careful about the tax handling... If they code this as a distro (1099-R) you get hit with the 10% penalty + income tax. If this is their error I would demand they code it as a rollover so you can deposit into another account. I originally assumed you over-contributed when I read this which usually means a corrected W-2.

Fidelity will let you set up your own IRA for nothing as well. Their fees are built into their institutional funds which you are not forced to buy (you can do whatever you want) and commissions on trades.

I ended up rolling over two vested employer 401Ks into a Fidelity IRA because one of them was already there and I like their platform.

[Gman]

I ended up rolling over two vested employer 401Ks into a Fidelity IRA because one of them was already there and I like their platform.
Me too. I even had a tiny pension from an old employer that got rolled over to an IRA at some bank I'd never heard of rolled into my Fidelity account. I had stocks that were in actual certificate form that Fidelity was able to get moved into the portfolio. Our savings goes there as well into a 'Money Market' type account that we can write checks against since banks can't provide squat for interest. Since the employer 401K is also managed by Fidelity, I can get an easy view of our entire portfolio of investments.