EGTRRA aendment, restate for GUST, new EGTRRA amendment?

[Guest JPAdmin]

I recently attended a seminar that indicated that if you have already amended for EGTRRA and then you restate for GUST, you must then amend again for EGTRRA.

I've been looking around for more information on this but have come up with nothing. Can any one else comment on this topic?

[Mike Preston]

Look at your GUST document. Does it contain EGTRRA materials? The answer is no. If you amend and restate a plan onto your GUST document, everything that went before it is thrown out the window, except those things you specifically mention in your document that you are keeping. So, I repeat, look in your GUST document? Does it "keep" anything with respect to EGTRRA? The answer is no.

So, whoever told you that you needed to adopt the EGTRRA amendment again was correct.

[Guest JPAdmin]

Thanks Mike. I agree 100%.

The argument being made was that the EGTRRA amendment was a stand alone document. Because it is dated after Jan. 1 and the gust restated document is effective Jan 1 or earlier the EGTRRA amendment is still valid.

[Guest JPAdmin]

Anyone else wrestling with this issue? Any other comments?

[Guest slt]

I'd be interested in what people are doing in the situation where a plan is amended and restated for GUST, is submitted to the IRS, the IRS takes 11 months to give you a letter and in the MEANTIME you have amended your plan for EGTRRA. What happens when the IRS requires you to reamend certain sections of your plan for GUST where you have already made an EGTRRA change?

[Mike Preston]

You make the amendment? The effective date of the amendment that the IRS is asking for is the major issue. In a GUST restatement shouldn't that be a while back? The provision, to the extent it is modified by the amendment for EGTRRA, is changed in accordance with the EGTRRA amendment. Hence, the IRS request is for a temporary change to the provision.

[Guest Therese]

You could add a statement to the amendment specifying both beginning and ending effective dates for the revised provision, possibly with a statement that amendment number (Egtrra number) takes over after that date. That should make it clear that you don't intend to replace the egtrra amendment. (If the provision you're asked to add is supposed to survive egtrra you could provide for that instead with a specific reference to the egtrra amendment.)

[Guest slt]

Thanks all.

Therese, that is an excellent idea. One of the changes that I was required to make was to define "social security retirement age" for purposes of my 415 limits section. Well, after EGTRRA, this whole concept of an interplay between the 415(B) limits and SSRA is obsoleted. So, as long as I limit my change (i.e., adopting a definition of SSRA after the EGTRRA change in which I deleted the definition(!)) until the first day of the plan year commencing on or after January 1, 2002, I should be okay.