Multiple Employer Plans

[Guest Donaldson]

IRC Section 413©(4) provides that each employer in a multiple employer plans is treated as maintaining a separate plan for purposes of the minimum funding requirements. Does anyone know if this means that if a multiple employer plan has unpaid minimum contributions, that each contributing employer (and controllled group members) will be liable only for its own unpaid contributions and not for the unpaid contributions of other contributing employers? Is IRC Section 413©(4) the primary authority for this or is there other authority? Does Prop. Reg. 1.413-2(e) contradict IRC 413©(4)?

Thank you for any assistance. I really appreciate it.

[Ron Snyder]

As an actuary who does single-employer plans I am also curious to get an answer. However, my recollection is that the Multi-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1979 imposed joint and several liability on employers participating in a multi-employer (Taft-Hartley) trust, but that may have only imposed withdrawal liability.