[Official Guidance]
Text of IRS Rev. Proc. 2016-37: Modifications to the Determination Letter Program for Individually Designed Plans and to the Six-Year Remedial Amendment Cycle System for Pre-Approved Plans (PDF)
33 pages. "This revenue procedure modifies the [IRS] determination letter program for qualified plans to eliminate, as of January 1, 2017, the five-year remedial amendment cycle system for individually designed plans ... Effective January 1, 2017, a sponsor of an individually designed plan will be permitted to submit a determination letter application only for initial plan qualification, for qualification upon plan termination, and in certain other circumstances, as described in ... this revenue procedure.
"This revenue procedure provides an extended remedial amendment period under section 401(b) of the [Code] for individually designed plans.
"This revenue procedure describes and makes clarifying changes to the six-year remedial amendment cycle system for pre-approved qualified plans and modifies the six-year remedial amendment cycle system, as applicable, to reflect
changes that have been made to the determination letter program for individually designed plans. In addition, this revenue procedure delays until August 1, 2017, the beginning of the 12-month submission period for master and prototype (M&P) plan sponsors and volume submitter (VS) practitioners to submit pre-approved defined contribution plans for opinion or advisory letters during the third six-year remedial amendment cycle.
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"Consideration will be given annually to whether determination letter applications will be accepted for individually designed plans in specified circumstances other than for initial qualification and qualification upon plan termination. Circumstances that will be considered when evaluating whether to accept determination letter applications for certain amended plans or types of amendments in plans in certain future years, include, for
example, significant law changes, new approaches to plan design, and the inability of certain types of plans to convert to pre-approved (that is, M&P and VS) plan documents. In addition, the IRS's current case load and resources available to process determination letter applications will be significant factors in deciding if and when to consider certain amended plans or types of amendments in plans under the determination letter program. Additional situations in which plan sponsors will be permitted to request determination letters will be announced in published guidance published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. Treasury and the IRS intend to request, on a periodic basis, comments on the additional situations in which the submission of a determination letter application may be appropriate. Based on an analysis of the factors listed in this section 4.03(3), including the IRS's current
resources and case load, the only determination letter applications for individually designed plans that will be accepted during calendar year 2017 (other than for Cycle A plans as described in section 4.01) are applications for initial plan qualification and qualification upon plan termination."
(Internal Revenue Service [IRS])