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Absolutely correct. This does not make a future mortgage payment a hardship. What your highlighted passage means is exactly what it says. Contrast that to section 457 unforeseeable emergency which requires the expense to be beyond the participants control. You still need the mortgage payment to be currently due in order to get a hardship distribution. future payments, even if you know you wont have the money to pay them, are not a hardship until the payment is actually due. I would even go as far as to argue that a past due notice is not enough unless it also specifically mentions foreclosure, but others might disagree.

Agree, forever is a good recommendation. However, that does not imply paper is the only viable storage medium.

First, I would advise that you change your service agreement to provide that you WILL destroy records in your possession after X years, and if the client/ex-client wants anything, you will provide it to them prior to X years (for a fee). Second, for your own protection, I would recommend keeping everything forever. One never knows when a client or a participant or someone is going to file suit, and put you in the hot seat for something. Relying on a "statute of limitations" defense is a last resort. Relying on proof you did nothing wrong is much better. Finally, ERISA requires the PLAN to maintain records for so long as necessary to calculate the benefits due (regardless of how long that is). Fiduciaries should keep everything forever - but that doesn't help you.. Who owns the records? Is it "plan records" or your records or what? You need to answer that before you can make a decision about what and when to purge. After all of that, the best guess is that the stature of limitations runs out six years AFTER the termination of the relationship. I'd put a buffer in that of a few more years, at least (one never really knows when the relations completely ceases to exist - e.g. providing data to the new provider to do the next 5500 may be after the "normal" end of the relationship - but may still be considered part of the relationship)).

Lest I forget to post: 22 years on April 20 I can never say it enough, I am very appreciative to those who have shared (including those who merely asked questions) for in either case it has helped me learn more, either by providing answers I didn't know or rousing my curiosity to research a question that was posed. my apologies to Dave over the years for all the bad dry humor that he wasn't able to stop me from posting. Having met him once, in regards to the Links I can say "Good Job, Walt, good job!" keep up the good work! my apologies to others if I unintentionally provided misinformation or in any way offended or stepped on someone's toes along the way.

Interesting... I think tuition payments for post-secondary education can be for the next 12 months. If so, I wonder it that would apply here...

I think you still need to be careful of IRC 410(a). For example, I don't think you can single out all employees with less than 6 years and give all of them $0.00 with everyone else getting some allocations. It's not a nondiscrimination issue, it's that you would look like your excluding employees longer than the maximum period of service allowed under 410(a)

Hardships are for immediate need, not to lessen future burdens.

A scanner and an intern can do wonders for paper reduction.

Yeah, 70 1/2 just seemed like a propitious time to leave. Thank you all for the good wishes.

I would be wary of any record keeper that said I had to amend my document because of system limitations. Unless the provision was quite out of the ordinary.

pffffft. Like anyone actually files before the last possible day.

You couldn't change the definition for someone who is already disabled under the old definition. On a prospective basis you could eliminate the disability right altogether or change the definition of disability. An accrued benefit is not protected by 411(d)(6) until it has accrued (with exception of certain enumerated rights like the right to early retirement). The way I would look at it, until someone becomes disabled under the disability provisions of the plan, he or she hasn't accrued the disability benefit; until accrual the right can be eliminated or revised.