Custom Regulatory Tables
The Custom Regulatory Tables Library allows you to reference certain types of data that change annually but that ProAdmin does not automatically attempt to “manage” because they are not needed for any built in operators. This feature is most often useful in creating special compensation limits, especially for limiting each year’s salary in a final average salary determination.
Thus, for example, if you have a plan that limits salaries by, say $50,000, increasing periodically, then you can create a text (.txt) file that holds the two columns of information: the plan year and the compensation limit for that year. You can then identify this file for ProAdmin as a “custom regulatory table” of a “compensation limit type”. Once this library entry has been created, it will be available to be accessed in Salary and Final Average Salary custom operators for limiting salary.
The values in the table will be used for all years prior to and including the decrement date. For Estimated Benefit calculations, increase rates must be specified in the Projection Assumptions | Regulatory Data Increase Rates to specify the values to be used for years after the most recent year contained in the file.
The following information comprises the definition of a Custom Regulatory Table library entry:
Name may be any descriptive phrase, including spaces, under which to save this Custom Regulatory Table.
Custom Regulatory Text File allows you to select a text (.txt) file that holds the custom regulatory data. The referenced file must contain two columns of data: the year and the regulatory limit associated with that year. Values will be projected backward to be equal to the value entered for the oldest specified year.
When you specify the name of the text file, if you do not include the path to the file, or if ProAdmin cannot find the file in the specified directory, then ProAdmin will search for the file in these directories, using this order:
If you are running the Calculator Tester or ProAdmin server, then only the RegPath ([Server] RegPath in PROADMIN.INI) is searched. If the Custom Regulatory Text File is not found in any of the search directories, then ProAdmin will try to use the internal copy of the data (if it exists). When a calculation is run and the table is found, ProAdmin stores an internal copy of the table (with its last modified timestamp). As long as the file is found and the name and timestamp don't change, the internal copy is used.
Note that a calculation's footnotes always specify what files were used and the path where the file was found. Or, if the file isn't found, the footnotes and processing messages indicate that the internal copy was used (because the file wasn't found).
Type indicates whether the table is to be treated as a Compensation limit or a Wage base. The choice here will control where the table will be accessible in ProAdmin. Specifically, all tables will be available to limit salaries in custom operators, but only wage base tables will be available where a wage base is required, such as for the covered compensation operator.
Rounding allows you to control rounding of both the specified table values and the future values projected in accordance with the increase rates specified in the Projection Assumptions. If you choose None, no rounding will be applied.
If you choose Apply U.S. maximum compensation rounding, the rounding applicable to the U.S. IRC 410(a)(17) maximum compensation limit will be applied to the specified and projected table values. This allows one to create, for example, a table that is comparable to RegMaxComp.txt, but in which the $150,000 limit is applied retroactively. The U.S. maximum compensation limits are generally rounded down to the nearest multiple of $5,000. However, for years before 1995, no rounding is applied, and for years after 2001, if the Regulatory Data option to Apply 2001 Tax Act (The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001, commonly known as EGTRRA) actuarial equivalence and rounding provisions is not checked, they are rounded down to the nearest multiple of $10,000.
If you choose Apply rounding rule:, you can specify the rounding Amount (typically 1 for dollar rounding, or 100 for hundreds) and the rounding Direction. The rounding direction can be specified as Nearest, Up or Down.