The Cycle 3 defined contribution pre-approved plan restatement deadline is coming: July 31, 2022. But there is more to restatements than that.
That looming deadline means that “now is the time” to focus on updating 401(k) and other plans—including profit-sharing, money purchase and employee stock ownership plans—to the Cycle 3 versions, says The ASC Institute in a recent alert. But they are not the only plans that need to be concerned about restatements, they note.
Pension Plans
The restatement deadline for defined benefit plans was July 31, 2020. ASC says that the IRS is reviewing pre-approved Cycle 3 restatements, and that they expect that the IRS will approve them by Jan. 31, 2023. At an Oct. 19, 2021 session of the 2021 ASPPA Annual conference, Brian Furgala, Director of ERISA Services of Wolters Kluwer, said that he guessed that Feb. 1, 2023 would be when the two-year restatement window for DB restatements will open. Furgala also had noted that under Revenue Procedure (Rev. Proc.) 2020-10, the Cycle 3 restatement period began May 1, 2020 and will end on Jan. 31, 2025.
403(b) Plans
The restatement deadline for 403(b) plans was April 30, 2020. At last month’s 2022 NTSA Summit, Nancy Billings, Vice President of Compliance, Tax-Deferred Solutions; and Sue Diehl, President of PenServ Plan Services, Inc., noted that Cycle 2 technically began on July 1, 2020, and the submission period for new plans will be May 2, 2022 to May 1, 2023. Before May 2, 2022, they said, the IRS will issue a Cumulative List of Changes that must be included in the new submitted plan documents.
Billings and Diehl also noted that the IRS in Revenue Procedure 2021-37 addressed Cycle 2 restatements. The intention, they said, is to put 403(b) plans on a regular 6-year cycle similar to that for 401(a) plans and to coordinate other provisions to make it similar to restatements required under Code Section 401(a). ACS adds in its paper that the IRS in Notice 2022-8 confirmed the Cycle 2 on-cycle submission period for 403(b) plans, and expressed the expectation that the two-year restatement window probably would start in 2025.
Terminated Plans
ASC cautions plan sponsors to remember that they must amend terminating plans to reflect all applicable laws that affect plan qualification that were in effect as of the plan’s termination date.
- Log in to post comments