EGTRRA and church plans

[Guest mike webb]

Does anyone know a good source for information on the applicability of the provisions of EGTRRA '01 to church plans? For example, I recently was informed that the new vesting schedule for matching contributions does not apply to church plans, but none of the published EGTRRA overviews that I have seen thus far make this distinction.

My thanks in advance to anyone who can assist me in this regard.

[Guest Danny Miller]

You're correct that the new EGTRRA vesting rules don't apply to church plans, either qualified or 403(B). (There is a technical issue in the legislation that needs to get cleared up involving the vesting rule in 403(B) that is used in connection with the Maximum Exclusion Allowance calculation, but that rule doesn't require any particular vesting schedule--it just tells you that you only consider nonvested amounts for MEA purposes when they vest.)

I have prepared an EGTRRA summary for a client that discusses the new legislation from a church plan perspective, but I don't know of any publicly available source that does that. If I come across one, I'll let you know.