Altered documents

[Hypothetically]

What would you do if you were aware of a TPA who had altered plan documents already signed by sponsor? Changes might be made well after the fact and to various selections on Volume Submitter Adoption Agreements, or corrections to amendments.

[Deidra Alston 1]

On 3/14/2016 at 7:46 PM, Hypothetically said:

What would you do if you were aware of a TPA who had altered plan documents already signed by sponsor? Changes might be made well after the fact and to various selections on Volume Submitter Adoption Agreements, or corrections to amendments.

This frequently occurs in most major Fortune 500's. Silence is golden unless your the key player.  Call out for corrections or make them yourself.

 

[K2]

How can one know that they altered a plan document?

 

[MoJo]

On 3/14/2016 at 7:46 PM, Hypothetically said:

What would you do if you were aware of a TPA who had altered plan documents already signed by sponsor? Changes might be made well after the fact and to various selections on Volume Submitter Adoption Agreements, or corrections to amendments.

That would be "fraud."  I would fire the TPA and then file a complaint with any "credentialing" organization they subscribe to.

[Belgarath]

Did the Plan sponsor KNOW about the change in advance? Let's take a perhaps realistic example:

Suppose on the PPA restatement, the TPA forgot to make an election on who would receive top heavy (everyone, or just non-keys). It just was left blank. No one noticed. Plan document was signed and dated.

Prior document specified top heavy only to non-keys. This was the intention of everyone involved for the new document, and SPD properly reflected this.

I suspect that many TPA's and clients, rather than doing an amendment, would simply put an "X" in the correct box and substitute the page in the document. I toss this out merely as grist for discussion.

[MoJo]

18 minutes ago, Belgarath said:

I suspect that many TPA's and clients, rather than doing an amendment, would simply put an "X" in the correct box and substitute the page in the document. I toss this out merely as grist for discussion.

I would agree with you that many would do this - but it is in essence a "scrivner's error" and once the plan document is signed, it can't "legally" be changed but through an amendment.  The next obvious question is "what is the risk" of just correcting it as you speak?"  The answer is: "it depends."  Every situation is different, and the IRS through it's EPCRS VCP program accepts applications and in appropriate cases grants relief to "retroactively" amend such scrivner's errors.  We've got three of those pending right now for clients of ours.

The final question is what are the costs of such a "non-approved" correction, if you get caught?  I would suggest the IRS or DOL or Courts would not necessarily look kindly on someone who had a legit corrective but ignored it in favor of slipping a page....

Classic "cost/benefit" analysis.  Depends on the nature of hte "box" to be checked/unchecked.