Expert: Allen - 10/10/2008

Question
I've been working a second job for the past 10 years - at present I work about 7 hours a week, but at one time I was working about 18 hours a week.  Anyway, my employer had a Profit Sharing Plan and I've always been excluded because I was never going to reach 1000 hours in a year.  Presently she is trying to close the account and it has come up that maybe I wasn't suppose to have been excluded.  I've looked up many websites on this subject, but none of them say the same thing.  What are the requirements?

Answer
There is a good reason why you can't get the answer from the websites. There is no general answer to the question.

The answer depends on the specific terms of the plan. Many plans require an employee to have a year of service in order to participate. If this is the case with this plan, then you would only be a participant if you met this requirement. (A year of service is a year that an employee is paid for 1000 hours.)

If this language is not in the plan, then you would have to look at the specific eligibility requirements.