Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Hard-freezing average comp'.
-
A very tight reading of EGTRRA shows that if a plan is hard-frozen (so that no further benefits accrue for any plan participants, necessarily resulting in there being no key employees benefiting under the plan), no further service need be recognized for top-heavy minimum benefit purposes. Many practitioners have been operating under the idea that the intent behind the EGTRRA changes was to permit even top-heavy plans to adopt hard freezes. In accordance with the language of EGTRRA, subsequent plan restatements have talked about years of service not counting if no key employee benefits. Would either of the following be considered unacceptable? If not, why not? 1. A non-frozen plan that is top-heavy is amended as of a current date to freeze accruals (service and average compensation), explicitly stating in the amendment that neither credited service nor compensation after the end of the plan year containing the freeze date will be recognized in determining any individual's top-heavy minimum benefit. 2. A previously hard-frozen top-heavy plan adopts an amendment explicitly recognizing compensation increases (but not service) between the original freeze date and the end of the plan year containing the new amendment's effective date, solely for purposes of determination as of that date of each non-key employee's top-heavy minimum benefit (either in formal recognition of legal necessity or to render the issue moot), and explicitly provides that compensation after the end of that plan year would not be taken into account in the determination of any participant's top-heavy minimum benefit. Assume for this that Section 436 would not prevent the adoption of such an amendment.
