After adoption
After the cash balance plan exists.
Adopting is the start. Freezing, amending, and terminating are part of the design.
A cash balance plan is a bad fit for someone who wants a one-year tax trick. It is a reasonable fit for someone who can fund through a few ordinary years and will call when a year is not ordinary.
The moments that need a meeting
- Profit drops. Do not skip a deposit and hope. The actuary can discuss an amendment or a freeze. Quiet nonpayment collides with minimum funding.
- You hire. Last year’s census is not this year’s test.
- You sell the practice. The plan’s assets and liabilities have to be dealt with in the deal, not discovered at closing. Termination, or a spin, is a project.
- You are done. Termination means a final valuation, filings, and usually a distribution or rollover to an IRA. It is not a form you download in an afternoon.
Annual administration — census, testing, notices, Form 5500 — is the quiet middle. Dates live on the calendar. If you are already a client, support is the right door. If you are deciding whether to start, read when not to and then bring the facts.