The problem isn't liquidating funds vs transferring in-kind. Yes that's frustrating to some but it's not the issue.There's no "secret language" that we're supposed to use. You're making it sound like Ascensus' front-line reps are the barrier here. But Fidelity's own management has reached out to Ascensus directly because they've been getting so many inquiries about the solo 401K situation. And even they are being told the same thing (that Ascensus will only send a check by liquidating the funds).Ascensus rejected Fidelity's request because you're not marked as a "terminated employee" in their system. Just like if you left your corporate job & called Fidelity to open a Rollover IRA for your old 401k, whoever Fidelity called would refuse to release your funds if your old HR person had forgotten to update your record & mark you as terminated. That's because plan documents allow distributions only in certain circumstances: employer terminates employee, employee reaches age 59.5, employee applies for hardship distribution.I don't think the issue is Ascensus giving wrong instructions. They seemingly don't have the infrastructure to do true transfers.Vanguard to Ascensus transferred in-kind. Ascensus accepted that. When my old employer switched from Transamerica to Principal no check mailing was involved and no employees were marked as terminated. Why does Ascensus now insist it's impossible to transfer plans/funds and insisting click a box saying "terminate" and receive distribution checks? Because their reps are giving wrong instructions based on an employee leaving their job not an employer doing a conversion/restatement/transfer of the entire plan to a new provider. And no one at Ascensus is making it possible to get the right instructions.
I tried to initiate a ToA on the Fidelity side, but Fidelity said it was rejected by Ascensus because they will only do it the one way where they liquidate your funds and send you a check. Ascensus doesn't even have a ToA form (paper or electronic).
If an employER wants to transfer/covert/restate its 401k plan to a new provider, the provider-being-dumped cannot refuse to obey that transfer. They certainly might not help you become an ex-client, but they cannot refuse.
For example: did any of you who in the past moved your Solo401K to/from Vanguard, eTrade, Fidelity, Schwab experience those companies refusing to release funds or mentioning the word "terminate" at any point in any context? No. The funds & plan were transferred. Just like it was smoothly transferred into Ascensus. Ascensus knows how this works & obviously can do it - they just did! They're just hiding the information about the magic words & who to contact to make them do it. Phone reps aren't gonna make it happen - the phine reps are there to talk to employee participants, not employER plan owner clients.
I'm starting to think getting out of Ascensus CORRECTLY is gonna be impossible without a service like MySolo401k who knows whatever the secret language is to force a plan provider to obey a transfer directive.
The secret language to get a 401k provider to obey a request to release an ex-employee's funds is to check a box to terminate" the employee.
Ascensus won't tell us the secret language/method to get them to obey the employER's directive to transfer the entire plan (obviously without terminating the plan nor terminating any employees).
As I mentioned, someone on Reddit moving their Solo to Fidelity wrote they were concerned by Ascensus telling them to mark themselves as terminated & showing a termination date. "Don't worry," the Ascensus rep told them, "that's not your employment termination date, that's just the plan termination date."
!!!!!!!
It must've been a different situation transferring the accounts from Vanguard since they already had a partnership with Vanguard and were already managing our solo 401Ks from the backend.
The problem is Ascensus releasing the funds as distribution rather than a restatement/conversion on the plan to a new provider.
Ascensus is telling Fidelity "no" because they're treating it as an employEE asking to rollover their 401K to a new provider. You can't do that if you still work at your job (or are 59.5 or fill out paperwork for a hardhship etc). Then we're calling Ascensus to ask why & they're saying, "Oh, you just need to mark your employment as 'terminated' and then we can release the funds and we'll mail you a check that you need to deposit in your new provider's account within 60 days." That's how it works leaving your corporate job & doing a clunky rollover to an IRA (or new corporate job's 401k). One person even mentioned the Ascensus rep said they'll get a 1099-R.
We CANNOT have that be what happens. We cannot take a "distrubution" and we cannot have a "plan termination date".
What we want to do is a plan "conversion"/"restatement" to a new provider. No employee is terminated, no plan is terminated, no funds are "distributed" (they're moved over, whether in-kind or not), no 1099-R is issued.
That is absolutely possible -- it's what Ascensus just did from Vanguard! It's what all Solo 401K & corporate 401K providers do everyday!-- but so far no one has figured out how to get Ascensus to enable us to make that directive to them/notify them we are letting them go as our plan provider.
Statistics: Posted by DrivenToSuces$ — Thu Aug 08, 2024 11:36 am — Replies 1257 — Views 134578