Did you know that an employee who has filed a retirement application with ORS or who will be terminating within 90 days may pay off a TDP agreement early? And that the payment can be made through payroll deduction, a transfer from another qualified plan or a direct payment to ORS? The Payoff Payment Options for a TDP Agreement form makes this possible, and it comes with a worksheet to help the employee calculate how many TDP deductions are remaining before they terminate.
It is important to ensure that the terminating employee completes the entire form. Both the employee and the employer must complete portions of the form. An incomplete form will be returned to the employee and may delay their retirement processing. Here are tips for you and your employees to keep in mind when completing it:
- The termination date from your reporting unit must be provided on the form.
- The employee needs to specify the type of payment in the Payment Options section.
- The employee may authorize one type of payment or all three by using the appropriate check box.
- The employee must specify the amount of payment for each checked box.
- If a one-time lumpsum payroll deduction is checked (all lump sum payments must be included on your retirement detail report as DTL3 records):
- Date the deduction will be made (the payroll report it will be on) must be listed.
- Payroll staff in your office must sign the form indicating the increased deduction will be processed through payroll.
- If a plan-to-plan transfer payment is checked, a Qualified Plan-to-Plan Transfer Certification must also be completed and returned to ORS.
- The employee must sign and date the bottom for the form to be valid.
The Payoff Payment Options for a TDP Agreement (R0518C) form and other TDP forms are available at the member website (www.michigan.gov/orsschools) under Forms and Publications. Please see Chapter 10.12.02: How to Payoff/Pay Down a TDP Early of the Reporting Instruction Manual for further information.
At the beginning of March, employees that were contributing less than 15% to their state of Michigan 457 accounts had their contributions increased by 1%. These increases will continue once a year unless the employee either opts out or reaches the 15% savings rate.
ORS reviews metrics to track the success of the campaign. Small Steps results so far show that:
- 294 employees increased their contributions to 15% or more before the Small Steps increase
- 125 employees increased to 15% with the Small Steps increase
- 1,871 employees opted out of Small Steps
More than 76,500 MPSERS employee’s contribution rate was increased due to Small Steps and are saving more towards retirement!
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Two sections of the Reporting Instruction Manual (RIM) were updated in the past month.
In RIM section 7.20.00 DC Contributions, the bolded part was added to the last sentence of the fifth paragraph:
It is only after a member opts out of the DC plan entirely that a reporting unit can stop withholding and reporting DC employer and employee deductions; however, DTL4 records are still required to be submitted with every payroll to report gross wages.
In section 14.03 Uploading Secure Files, step 3 was changed. We updated images and removed details regarding specific uploads for files we no longer require (for example the Health Care Contribution spreadsheet), and replaced those details with the following language:
To upload a file, refer to the request document to complete the fields on the Upload Message screen:
Recipient: DMBORSER
Class ID: See file request
Transfer Mode: binary
File: See file request
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Employer Reporting would like to hear from you.
If you have a topic that you would like to see in a future issue of Employer News, please send an email to ORS_Web_Reporting@michigan.gov with subject line “Newsletter Topic” and we will do our best to include your suggestions.
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In This Issue:
 Important Dates & Reminders
March 1
Last day to submit Form 2848 to participate in the 3% HCC Closing Agreement
March 7
Scheduled system maintenance (Employer Reporting website unavailable)
April 1
Last day to submit the 2019-2020 Independent Contractor/Third-Party Employee Audit form and related files via FTS
April 4
Scheduled system maintenance (Employer Reporting website unavailable)
03/04/2021: REVISED 2019-2020 Independent Contractor/Third-Party Employee Audit for ORS
03/12/21 IRS Closing Agreement attached (3% HCC)
7.21.00 DC Contributions (updated 3/9/2021)
14.03 Uploading Secure Files (updated 2/19/2021)
Check your Employer Statement before making payments
When your Web Administrator is not available and when contacting ORS to reset your Employer Reporting website password, please have your user ID and reporting unit number readily available. This allows us to access your Reporting Unit information quickly and easily.
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