401kspeclst

My understanding is we must suspend a participant based on the following from the IRS website: After an employee receives a hardship distribution of elective contributions from his or her 401(k) plan, generally the employee will be prohibited from making elective contributions and employee contributions to the plan and all other plans maintained by the employer for at least 6 months after receipt of the hardship distribution. (Reg. §1.401(k)-1(d)(3)(iv)(E)(2)) I am questioning the language of "at least 6 months", can it be more? Are you saying it can be less?

If our plan is not a safe harbor plan, can we impose a one year suspension for a hardship withdrawal or does it have to be 6 months? If one year is acceptable can someone direct me to the code that backs that up? Thank you!