How many times can a plan be amended before it must be restated?

[billfgrady]

We are reviewing a plan document that has four or five "slap-on" amendments. I recall seing something somewhere that a plan sponsor must restate a plan in its entirety after the plan has been amended a certain number of times. Can anyone confirm this with a cite?

[Blinky the 3-eyed Fish]

How about this prior discussion?

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?s...t=0entry92008

[MGB]

Note that the "limit" is only with reference to filing for a determination letter. I.e., the IRS doesn't want to try and link through a pile of documents when they review it. Other than restating at the time of filing to make the IRS's job easier, there is no legal requirement of ever restating. You could have hundreds of amendments without restating.

[g8r]

Agreed. And, I've wondered how this provision in the rev. proc. would be applied in today's environment (so I'm a little warped).

For example, you have a 401(k) prototype plan subject to the J&S rules that has been updated for GUST. You adopt an EGTRRA good-faith amendment. You adopt the model amendment for the 401(a)(9) regulations. You adopt an amendment for the deemed 125 compensation provision. You adopt an amendment to deal with retroactive annuity starting dates. Lastly, you adopt an amendment to deal with the elimination of the reduction in the 402(g) limit due to a safe harbor hardship distribution.

Assuming all of the above are required and you do these as separate amendments, do you now have to restate the plan if you submit for a DL? Under the Rev. Proc. yes. Does it make sense? No. I didn't even amend anything in the underlying adoption agreement so why restate it.

And looking at it again, a restatement doesn't mean one single document. We know that at the very least the EGTRRA amendment for a prototype must be a separate amendment.

Oh well....