Catch-Up Question on Off-Calendar plan?

[Guest KD40]

A fairly simple question, but I am getting conflicting answers. Can someone please verify and give me the correct answer.

The plan year I am testing is 10/1/01 - 9/30/02.....are catch-up's even allow for that time period. My opinion is that catch-ups were not even available when this plan year started, therefore they would not be allow until the 10/1/02 - 9/30/03 year.

Thanks.

[Fredman]

My understanding is that catch-ups are limited on calender years. This means that if you had contributions in 2002 for your 10/1/01-9/30/02 plan year, those contributions could apply to the 2002 catch-up limit.

[Alf]

I think it is a participant limit that is not affected by the plan year, so employees should be able to make $1,000 from 1/1/02-12/31/02 even in a fiscal plan year, but I am not sure about administration or testing. Does anyone else know if this is correct?

[kocak]

RE if they were available prior to 9/30/02 it depends on your EGTRRA amendment. Ours generally said available for PYB after 1/1/02 so they wouldn't have been available until 10/1/02.

RE the limit, it is a calendar year limit so for PY 10/1/02-9/30/03 they could conceivably do $1000 from 10/1-12/31/02 and $2000 for 1/1/03-9/30/03.

Earlier this year I posted a worksheet for determining the amount of catch-up contributions that works especially well for off calendar years. If you don't find it doing a search, email me and I'll send to you.

Michele