Bob Architect, Senior Tax Law Specialist and the resident expert on 403(b) plans, receives many questions while presenting the latest 403(b) information to organizations. See the most frequently asked questions and Bob's answers here.
I. 403(b) Final Regulations Effective Date:
- What is the effective date of the 403(b) Final Regulations? Does everyone have the same effective date?
II. Written Plan Requirement:
- What is a “written plan” as required under the 403(b) Final Regulations?
- Does having a written plan cause a non-ERISA 403(b) to become subject to ERISA?
- Can a 403(b) plan be terminated under the 403(b) Final Regulations?
III. Universal Availability:
- Do the 403(b) Final Regulations affect the nondiscrimination provisions known as Universal Availability?
- Who can be excluded?
- What about nondiscrimination rules for non-elective contributions?
IV. Post Severance Contributions to a 403(b) Plan:
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V. Timing of Depositing Elective Deferrals:
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VI. Changes to the Revenue Ruling 90-24 Provisions:
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I. 403(b) Final Regulations Effective Date:
1. What is the effective date of the 403(b) Final Regulations? Does everyone have the same effective date?
The general effective date of the regulations is for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2008. There are some notable exceptions.
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Collectively bargained agreements where the 403(b) is directly affected or established as a result of the collectively bargained agreement being in place. It doesn’t apply only because there is a collectively bargained agreement, but where there was a link between the 403(b) and the collectively bargained agreement itself.
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Churches that sponsor 403(b)s where the obligation to either establish the 403(b) or amend the 403(b) plan itself is an outcome of a church convention. So merely because a 403(b) is sponsored by a church does not, in and of itself, mean that it’s going to experience a delayed effective date but rather, where the authority to amend or establish the plan would be with the church convention.
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There are also a number of removals of what we call varying, permissibly excluded groups for purposes of the universal availability requirement. In regard to removal of these groups, there will be experienced a delayed effective date.
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Certain governmental 403(b)s for limited universal availability purposes. Merely because a government sponsors a 403(b) does not, in and of itself, mean that there is going to be a delayed effective date. It is linked only to varying requirements of universal availability. The regulations should be reviewed in-depth to determine if the delayed effective date applies.
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“Grandfathered” items. The regulation’s general effective date is for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2008. Grandfathering means what was there will continue to exist. For example, a certain contract in 403(b) or a certain specific item under that contract that is dealt with in the regulations, what happened prior to that date may not necessarily be affected by the regulations. Some of the areas that experience grandfather treatment are the in-service distributions of non-elective contributions from 403(b)(1) annuity contracts, incidental life insurance contracts that had been issued as part of the 403(b) program and certain Revenue Ruling 90-24 Contract Exchanges.
Return to Effective Date FAQs
II. Written Plan Requirement:
1. What is a “written plan” as required under the 403(b) Final Regulations?
Under the new 403(b) Final Regulations, for the very first time, the 403(b) program is required to be maintained pursuant to a written defined contribution plan, which plan, both in form and operation, satisfies the 403(b) requirements and contains all the terms and conditions for eligibility, limitations and benefits under the plan.
This is a highly significant provision because prior to this regulation’s effective date, there was no requirement that these programs be maintained pursuant to a written plan. Now there is such a requirement. What that means essentially is all of provisions of the way the plan works has to be spelled out in a plan and the plan has to operate in accordance with these terms that are spelled out in it.
For example, if a plan or a 403(b) program offers loans, or even the ability to take a distribution on account of financial hardship, the ability to take a loan or a financial hardship would have to be spelled out in the plan, as would the methodology of actually going ahead and servicing and dealing with the loans and also dealing with the certification of financial hardship.
These items now have to be spelled out in a written plan. However, you’ll notice the 403(b) Final Regulations never used the word plan document because it is the belief that this plan could be a subject of a number of items either stapled together or held together by a big paperclip.
Many organizations may already have these types of programs and not even realize it. For example, the plan can be composed of a salary reduction agreement, the various contracts that fund the plan, as well as administrative procedures regarding who is eligible, how benefits are made available and what the dollar limitations are.
If all those items, including nondiscrimination items for universal availability for salary reductions and non-elective nondiscrimination situations, if you have them, if all that is spelled out, you could just clip those documents together and you’ve got your plan.
That’s not to say that individuals cannot maintain this plan pursuant to a single written document. That would be fine too. To help organizations meet this written plan requirement, a revenue procedure will soon be released that will contain model plan language that would enable a sponsor of a 403(b) to put together a very simple basic 403(b) program based upon the model plan language.
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2. Does having a written plan cause a non-ERISA 403(b) to become subject to ERISA?
Let us begin answering this question by stating right up front, particularly where education is concerned, to realize that any form of government is not subject to ERISA. So if we have a 403(b) in a public K-12 school, no matter what they did under that plan, it would not subject them to ERISA. Public universities are also not subject to ERISA.
So the answer to this question really addresses those employers in the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt community. There, the very fact that they put in a written plan where in the past they had not been necessarily subject to ERISA, the mere existence of a written plan or the mere compliance with the terms of the regulations, which, of course, contain the written plan requirement, would not, in and of itself, subject them to ERISA.
For additional guidance on ERISA in regard to Title I, which is administered by the Department of Labor, consult www.dol.gov/ebsa for guidance as to the issue of what subjects a 403(b) to ERISA.
Return to Written Plan Requirement FAQs
3. Can a 403(b) plan be terminated under the 403(b) Final Regulations?
Well, yes, and this is very, very interesting, because 401(k)s and governmental 457(b)s are permitted to terminate, that is distribute all the assets in an administratively feasible period, and the individuals to whom the assets are distributed have the right to roll-over. The only program that didn’t have this in regard to these other deferral programs, was 403(b). This is one instance where the distinction has been removed. And now, in accordance with the regulations, a 403(b) can also be terminated, very much in the same manner as a 401(k) can be terminated, and the individuals who receive their funds have a right to roll these over to other retirement programs, Individual Retirement Accounts, etc. So this is a brand new ability for 403(b)s to make distributions when a plan is terminated under the appropriate circumstances as outlined in the regulation.
Return to Written Plan Requirement FAQs
III. Universal Availability:
1. Do the 403(b) Final Regulations affect the nondiscrimination provisions known as Universal Availability?
It is important to note that contributions in 403(b) could be either elective contributions, that is your salary reduction contributions, or non-elective contributions, such as your employer match or discretionary or mandatory contribution on your behalf. Focusing for a moment on elective contributions, there is no mathematical test as there is in 401(k), but rather there is a standard called Universal Availability.
Let’s assume I was a school teacher working for a public school. If I had the right to make elective deferrals, you, unless you were among one of the permissively excludable groups that I’ll talk about a little bit later, also would have to have a right to make elective deferrals. Universal - that means it applies to everyone. Universal Availability - that is the standard for elective nondiscrimination in 403(b).
Now this universal availability has many, many factors. And interestingly enough, it applies to each common-law entity separately. It doesn’t generally group what we call ‘control groups’ together. It applies to them separately, and the regulations talk about those instances where this application takes place.
But let’s look at universal availability. Remember, I was saying if I have the right to do it, unless you fall into a permissively excludable group, you also would have to have the right to make these elective deferrals. But what happens? Sometimes our agents, during the conduct of an exam, go into the human resources office or personnel department and they ask, “Does everyone have the right who could not otherwise be properly permissively excluded? Does everyone have the right to make elective deferrals?”
“Why yes,” the personnel person tells them.
The agent then asks, “Well, if they have that right, how do folks know about it? Bob has the right to do it, how does Benise know if she has that right?”
And the answer is, unfortunately, that they give the agent, “If Benise came in and asked us, we would tell her she has that right.”
Well, that doesn’t quite work, because part of universal availability is that participants who have the right to make elective deferrals need to be given a meaningful notice of that right. Something affirmative on behalf of the employer that communicates this information to the participant.
We don’t say what type of communication this could be, whether electronic or hard copy, but there must be some form of a meaningful notice. Also, to satisfy universal availability, we deal with the election timing. Individuals have to know and be given the right as to when to enter into a salary reduction agreement and how many times during the year, or when during that year, they can alter that agreement to accommodate, for example, differences in desired reduction of their salary.
So such items as meaningful notice, election timing, that is discussed in the regulation as being part and parcel of the universal availability requirement.
Now, one of the other items is that the right to make salary reduction contributions to your 403(b) may not, much like 401(k), be conditioned on something else. To take a simple example, you can’t tell someone that unless they take a certain level of health insurance they can’t make salary reductions to their 403(b). That would be conditioning the right of salary reduction elective deferrals on something else. It doesn’t work in 401(k) and it’s not going to work in 403(b).
Return to Universal Availability FAQs
2. Who can be excluded?
As I said earlier, everyone must be given the right to make salary reduction elective deferrals unless they are among various permissively excluded groups, and I emphasize the word ‘permissive’, because you don’t really have to exclude anyone. As long as individuals are your common-law employees, they can be given the right to make salary reduction contributions.
Now, when I say common-law employees, it’s important to note that, for example, you are dealing with a public school that outsourced their janitorial, cafeteria, transportation services, to an organization or an organization that leased them employees for that purpose, those employees would not be the school’s common-law employees and couldn’t even be in a 403(b) that the school offers to begin with.
So it has nothing to do with excluding them, because 403(b) only applies to an organization’s common-law employees. But, assuming that a group of individuals are common-law employees, who can be permissively excluded so that the organization does not run afoul of the universal availability nondiscrimination for elective deferral requirements?
One of those groups is employees eligible under other deferral plans. For example, where a 401(k) exists that pertains to salary reduction. Where a 457(b) governmental eligible plan exists that also provides for salary deferrals, those employees can be excluded. Nonresident aliens can be excluded. Students could be excluded.
And finally, the group that perhaps is the most major of the permissive exclusions are those individuals who ordinarily work less than 20 hours per week. Those individuals could also be excluded if they ordinarily work less than 20 hours per week. But, I’ll give you an example of one of the problems we frequently find with these 20-hour per week people that we encounter on live examinations.
What happened was it was pursuant to what I’d like to call the problem of poor written plan design. This organization did have a written plan, and in it they said only full-time employees can make salary reduction agreements to the 403(b). They then went on to define full-time employees as those who work 2,000 hours a year.
Our agents went in, found people who were working 1200, 1300, 1400, hours a year, obviously ordinarily more than 20 hours per week, and that program failed universal availability. So, that could happen pursuant to poor plan design. But there are instances where excluding people who work a lot is not really a problem.
Let’s take, for example, a university or a tax-exempt organization that sponsors a summer camp. They have counselors working at this camp who might work 50 hours a week for up to two months. Well, they feel if they haven’t covered those folks they have a problem, they failed universal availability.
No, because we really look at it on a yearly basis. So working the 20 hours or more for two months would not cause people to have to be included in regard to the 403(b) elective deferral opportunities. Tax-exempt organizations, for example, hire people who do what they call stuffing envelopes prior to the Christmas and Easter season for solicitations. And what happens is these people, again, may work 40 or even 50 hours a week, but maybe just for a few-week period. They have not ordinarily worked 20 hours per week on a yearly basis. But the question always was, prior to the regulations, where is it written that this 20 hour per week is done and viewed on a yearly basis?
Well, there was no place we could really point to. But now we can with the regulation. And one of the highlights, at least, I think, of the regulation is that we have set up a pretty good bright line, common sense test, that’s going to enable employers to know if their people really have worked 20 hours or more per week on a yearly basis.
We basically start by saying upon hire, does the employee’s employer reasonably expect that employee to work a thousand hours for the ensuing 12-month period? So right away, two things have been created. We talk about a thousand hours, and we talk about ensuing 12-month period, which shows that that’s the period of time we use to test this ordinarily works 20 hours or more per week.
And the second part of the test is that for determining whether or not they had worked less than 20 hours a week so that they could be excluded, we look back to see if that thought of the employer was correct. Remember, we begin with did the employer reasonably expect the employee to work 20 hours or more per week, and we look back during the course of an exam to see if they have actually worked that 20 hours per week over that 12-month period.
So, what have we really done? We have really created a one thousand hour standard. But I caution. Any organization that is subject to ERISA, and remember, governments are not subject to ERISA. Many churches are not subject to ERISA that sponsor 403(b)s. But, any organization that is subject to ERISA should really look at a section of the regulations that specifically deals with this, because if you’re subject to ERISA, a bright line one thousand hour test may well run afoul of some of the ERISA rules.
For this purpose they should see Section 1.403(b)-5(b)(4)(iii)(b)(2) in the regulations, which we have cited to, for this discussion.
Additionally, some years ago, Notice 89-23 came out, and in that notice, a number of permissive exclusions were included that went beyond the statutory exclusions that I just discussed, such as your 20-hour per week people, your students, your nonresident aliens.
It included a number of permissive exclusions that we, in working on the final regulations, could really find no basis for in statute, and, therefore, have eliminated them as permissive exclusions for the universal availability standards. Now some of those folks are collectively bargained employees who were permissively excluded by terms of the collectively bargained agreement and visiting professors. Employees who have taken a vow of poverty can not be used as a permissive exclusion, and those employees who make a one-time election to participate in a governmental non-403(b) plan. The regulation has eliminated those permissive exclusions, as I say, discussed originally back in Notice 89-23, for which we could not find a basis in statute.
Return to Universal Availability FAQs
3. What about nondiscrimination rules for non-elective contributions?
Well, I talked quite a bit about elective nondiscrimination, and we know that there is a universal availability standard. But contributions to 403(b) can take several forms. Elective deferrals is but one of them. Remember, we talked about there’s a limit within a limit. There’s an overall limit, and in regard to the dollars between those elective deferrals and the overall limit, there are other types of contributions.
For example, employer or non-elective contributions such as employer matches, and employer discretionary and mandatory contributions. These are known as employer non-elective contributions. Notice 89-23, which I earlier spoke of, talked about a reasonable good-faith standard applying to these contributions. In other words, if one acted reasonably, they could meet the requirements of non-elective nondiscrimination. But what these regulations do, is essentially help compliance and enforcement in the following instance: They set up a standard removing reasonable good-faith compliance, which means if you’re dealing with non-elective nondiscrimination in 403(b) and you’re a nongovernmental-sponsoring entity of the program, you would have to deal with, if you had a matching contribution, the rules of 401(m) as if you had a qualified plan and the rules of 401(a)(4) in regard to discretionary or mandatory employee non-elective contributions to see if you satisfy the non-elective contribution nondiscrimination rules.
Now again, and I can’t emphasize enough, these are not relevant for governments, but for non-governments, we like to say that post-Notice 89-23 reasonable good-faith compliance, 401(m) means 401(m) and 401(a)(4) means 401(a)(4).
Return to Universal Availability FAQs
IV. Post Severance Contributions to a 403(b) Plan
1. I will be retiring at the end of the school year and have heard that I can continue to make contributions to my 403(b) account. Is this true?
There are actually two ways in which contributions can be made to a former participant’s account after they have terminated service with their employer. One is employee elective deferrals made by the later of 2 1/2 months from the date of severance or the end of the year of severance. The other is through employer non-elective contributions that can be made for 5 years after the date of severance. Let me explain the first.
For many years people have asked us, “I’ve been contributing to my 403(b) for years pursuant to a salary reduction agreement. However I’m leaving service.” Let’s say they are leaving service on June 30th and they know that they will be receiving some checks after they leave service, for example, the catch up of their regular pay period, maybe some overtime or bonuses, maybe even a back pay award. They may say, “My employer has promised to pay me any accrued but unused vacation or sick pay in cash after I leave. I’m not sure if it will be two or six weeks later, but I know I’m gonna be getting that check sometime after I leave.”
The issue has always been, “Will I be able to make an elective deferral pursuant to my salary reduction agreement by virtue of these checks I’m going to receive? Can I shelter some of those funds into my 403(b)?”
Well, those questions have been answered in the regulations. When an individual leaves service, only three types of compensation that they receive afterward can be included therein: their regular pay, their accrued but unused vacation and their accrued but unused sick pay.
For those three items, they have up until the later of the end of the year in which they leave service or two and a half months to make that elective deferral after they’ve left.
Let’s see how that would work in the case of a school teacher who left service on June 30th of 2007. That means that he or she would have until December 3lst of 2007 to make a contribution out of these checks for regular pay, vacation or sick pay.
But, they also have an overall limit on the elective deferrals that they could make for the 2007 year - that could be as much as $23,500. If they were contributing the max knowing they were leaving at the end of June, they may have already filled up that limit. So if they did, those checks would come and they would have no limit left to defer from those particular checks.
However, let’s take that same individual. He or she leaves service on November 30th. That individual would have two and a half months after November 30th, or February 15th to receive those checks and make a deferral from them. In the 2008 year, they would pick up an entirely new elective deferral limit. That limit is ordinarily indexed each year, so we don’t yet know what it is for years after 2007. If that individual planned ahead, he or she would be able to optimize the ability to continue tax deferral of those funds into a following year when they pick up a brand new limitation. It’s important to understand that these are only for regular pay paid after one leaves, sick pay and vacation pay.
Now let’s talk about the logistics of how they would do it.
Let’s say they’ve been contributing for years by a salary reduction agreement that specified $200 a pay period to be deferred to the 403(b). What would happen if they received a check for $80,000 and they had a salary reduction agreement in place that said $200? Well, that wouldn’t optimize the opportunity to make a maximum deferral, particularly if they were in a brand new year, with a brand new limitation. So they can, within the time after they leave, as long as the funds have not been paid or made available to them, go in and alter that salary reduction agreement to actually encompass, within the otherwise applicable elective deferral limit, a bigger portion of the larger size check that they would receive.
Return to Post Severance Contributions to a 403(b) Plan FAQs
2. What do the regulations say about the very unique feature concerning post-severance contributions by my employer?
This is probably one of the most unique and interesting provisions that 403(b) has that, to my knowledge, doesn’t appear in any type of other retirement plan that sponsoring employers can offer their individual employees. This is the second method I mentioned earlier that allows contributions to be made to a former employee’s 403(b) account after that employee’s date of severance. This feature allows the employer to contribute to the individual’s 403(b) account for up to five years after they’ve left service.
Let’s take that same individual that we talked about earlier who leaves on June 30th. That organization has until the end of 2007, those six remaining months, and then five years more, to make contributions to their 403(b) within the maximum, legal overall limit, which for defined contribution plans is $45,000.
Projecting $45,000 out over five years is $225,000. That’s a lot of money. The rule for this benefit is that it must be done with non-elective contributions only. This must be the employer’s money. It may not be accomplished via a salary reduction agreement.
Let’s talk about accrued but unused sick pay that many people get after they leave service. They’re about to get the check in cash, but they go into the human resources office from the organization from which they’re leaving service or retiring and they say, “We give away our right to receive these amounts in cash. We’d like to take advantage of this unique five year provision and deem these amounts to be an employer contribution because we know employer contributions don’t show up on box one of our W-2, nor are they subject to the FICA taxes, whereas, of course, amounts subject to a salary reduction are, subject to FICA taxes, where otherwise applicable.”
What that individual did by giving up the right to receive that in cash was make a cash or deferred election, in other words, an elective deferral. And, they’re not allowed under the five year provision; so they’re under the regular elective deferral rules again.
It’s important to note that while a lot of money could be put into the 403(b) (based upon 2007 monetary standards up to $225,000.00), this cannot in any way, shape or form be done by a direct or indirect cash or deferred election. It must be the employer’s own money.
So sometimes what happens is you have a union that, pursuant to its collectively bargained agreement, individuals have the right to receive in cash accrued but unused sick pay. The union, in the due course of collectively bargaining renewals or as an amendment to their pre-existing collectively bargained agreement, goes in and gives away the right to receive this cash on behalf of all employees for the duration of the collectively bargained agreement. Then, since these employees do not have that right, they ask that amounts pursuant to a formula that represents the accrued but unused sick pay be contributed to a tax-sheltered annuity under 403(b).
Now that would work. But what happens is since this is a five year payout, many members are worried that if they should pass away during those five years, they want the remainder of any funds paid to their beneficiary, or they would like contributions continued to their 403(b) on their beneficiary’s behalf in regard to the remaining period of time. The regulations have some great examples of this and one of them shows that there really can’t be contributions after the individual dies. Since these are non-elective contributions, there is really no remainder of funds to be paid to a beneficiary.
This is an extremely good benefit of 403(b)s. Any organization interested in offering this to their participants should look specifically at the text of the regulation and the examples. For organizations that are non-government, there are issues to resolve to assure that these contributions do not discriminate in favor of highly compensated participants as against non-highly compensated participants. One would have to test under a regulation under 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (known as 1.401(a)(4)–10(b)). However, if you were in a governmental environment, you’re not subject to non-elective, nondiscrimination and, therefore, would not have this additional concern.
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3. So there can be no hint of a cash or deferred arrangement?
That’s absolutely true. When using this five year provision, there must be no hint of a cash or deferred arrangement. These must be non-elective employer contributions. They cannot be an employee’s cash or deferred salary reduction type contribution for this five year provision.
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V. Timing of Depositing Elective Deferrals
1. Do the regulations address the time frame in which a participant’s elective deferral must be sent to the vendor?
Well, this is a very good point, and thank goodness they do, because we had a very strange rule in the past. What happens is that an employee had their salary reduced in January, February and March. The employer doesn’t forward these monies to the vendor, the organization that offers the annuity or custodial account, until, let’s say, the end of that year, sometime in December. That was a bit of a problem, and that was old Revenue Ruling 67-69, which basically said, that in order to have a good 403(b), you only have to pass these amounts on to the vendor, but once a year.
We came up with a rule and an example that amounts have to be passed on to the vendor in an administratively feasible period, which we consider, for example, within 15 business days following the month in which these amounts would have been paid to the participant.
However, if you are subject to ERISA, you must abide by the tighter ERISA time frame of forwarding amounts on to the vendor. If you’re not, you will come under this new rule.
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VI. Changes to the Revenue Ruling 90-24 Provisions
1. Have the rules about in-service transfers (commonly referred to as the 90-24 transfers) changed?
Yes. In-service transfers or exchanges were known as 90-24 transfers. These types of transfers were in-service transfers, called annuity to annuity transfers or exchanges, that did not include employer involvement.
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2. You said annuity to annuity transfers. Does this apply to custodial accounts and church retirement income accounts?
Yes. Revenue Ruling 90-24, which dealt with in-service transfers or exchanges, applied not only to annuities, but also to the custodial accounts and church retirement income accounts.
This issue generated the most interest under the proposed regulations. It was felt that this right to transfer was a very important right to participants and they wouldn’t be locked into an investment which they were not pleased with. Let me talk for a moment about what happened and how this unabridged right addled both the employer in compliance and the Internal Revenue Service in enforcement of the rules of 403(b).
I’m going to give you an example of an individual who worked for a tax-exempt organization which had five payroll slots for various vendors to offer benefits under 403(b) to their employee participants. However, one employee, for example, came to their employer and said, “I know of the ABC Custodial Account which has better earnings than any of the ones you offer. I would like you to create a sixth payroll spot to accommodate what I would like to use in regard to my 403(b) investment.”
The people in charge of this said, ”No, we are not going to create a sixth slot. We are going to stay with five. We can’t be overburdened with sending monies to many different vendors.”
The individual, under the old Revenue Ruling 90-24, was permitted to go ahead and take their accumulated benefit in the existing 403(b) and transfer that amount somewhere to another vendor.
The problem with this was the transfer was not a reportable event on a 1099. So no one, especially the IRS, even knew it took place. The employer, who would be charged with varying responsibilities in regard to the 403(b), would not know where the money was either. How could they deal with such things as: Are loan limits being exceeded? Is the financial hardship actually appropriate? Are individuals abiding by the varying distribution restrictions?
This just wasn’t working. So we proposed a new regimen, which I like to call “Beyond 90-24,” that deals with in-service movement of funds. This is a movement of funds that takes place by a person who is still working. And the regulations came up with two types of transfer regimes in the new world beyond 90-24.
The first deals with when the transfer takes place, within the same plan. This world is a plan-based world, which means that the actions that are taken, the actions that are available under a plan, are set forth within the plan itself and they must be followed in accordance with the terms of that plan.
So, if you were to have movement within the same plan of funds between vendors one of which offered a contract which was under the plan and one whose contract was not, first of all, the plan would have to permit the movement. Second, the benefits could not be diminished. Third, when the funds move, those that were subject to distribution restrictions must be subject to the same distribution restrictions.
And finally, the employer and the issuer must enter into an information-sharing agreement so that the employer knows exactly where the funds are, so they could comply with the various aspects of the Internal Revenue Code and regulations thereunder. Now remember, we split 90-24 into two new regimes.
What I just discussed was the actual movement of funds within the same plan. But let’s address a plan-to-plan movement of funds. The plans, again, would have to permit the transfer. Or a plan would have to permit the movement out, the receiving or transferee plan would have to approve and permit for the acceptance of the funds.
The participant would have to be an employee or former employee of the employer for the receiving plan. And as before, the distribution restrictions cannot be diminished and the benefits can not be diminished.
So the new 90-24 deals with two things: movement within the plan and movement between plans. And because we have written plans, the rules and the logistics of these movements of funds would be spelled out and outlined in the plans themselves.
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