Benefits & ERISA Law

The Six Year Submission Cycle Begins Again

By Suzanne Wynn

Hallelujah! Just in time for Christmas the IRS has released Notice 2010-90. It contains the 2010 Cumulative List, which is to be used to restate individually designed Cycle A plans and submit them to the IRS for a determination letter between Feb. 1, 2011 and Jan. 31, 2012.

The reason I am so excited about Notice 2010-90 is that it states the 2010 Cumulative List is also to be used by plan sponsors and practitioners for submitting opinion/advisory letter applications for defined contribution pre-approved prototype and volume submitter plan documents for the second submission under the remedial amendment cycle under Rev. Proc. 2007-44. For anyone who writes prototype and volume submitter defined contribution plan documents, which I do, Notice 2010-90 contains crucial information needed to create the next generation of plan documents. With Notice 2010-90, the next generation of defined contribution plans can finally move from speculation to creation.

For those of you saying “Whoa, wait a minute, the restatement cycle for pre-approved prototype and volume submitter defined contribution plans just ended on April 30, 2010″, you are correct – it did just end earlier this year. This Cumulative List is the recipe for creating plan documents needed to restate for the next restatement cycle that will end around April 30, 2016. Rev. Proc. 2007-44 explains it this way –

Feb. 1, 2011 to Jan. 31, 2012 – plan document providers mail their prototype and volume submitter plan to the IRS

Feb. 1, 2012 to approx. Jan. 31, 2014 – IRS reviews those plan documents and approves them

approx. Feb. 1, 2014 to approx. Jan. 31, 2017 – plan sponsors restate onto the new defined contribution plan documents

The current generation of plan documents are commonly known as EGTRRA documents. No indication from the IRS in Notice 2010-90 about what name the next generation of plan documents will be commonly known by. My best guess at this point is that the documents will be known as the PPA plan documents. Now I just need the updated version of Notice 2005-16 for 2010 and the updated 2010 DC LRMs, and a lot of caffeine.

Full post as published by Pension Protection Act Blog on December 13, 2010 (boomark / email).