Excess Contributions - Deduction and return of money question

[Guest JVH]

Company A overcontributed the match and safe harbor contribution in 2002 by a few thousand dollars each. The plan was to carry it over to 2003 and reduce the amount paid in for those items in 2003. Of course, that did not happen, and they now have determined that for 2003 they not only did not use up the 2002 overages, but increased the overage for the match and safe harbor nonelective, and they contributed more than they intended for profit sharing (they wanted to give everyone a certain percentage of comp). They did NOT max out the 2002 or 2003 contribution or deduction limits under 415 and 404.

Question:

Because they did not max out the deduction or contribution limits, can the 2002 and 2003 overages still be deducted in 2002 and 2003, and just carried over to 2004 in a suspense account? All I can really find on this topic pertains to situations where the overage is over the deduction limit. Here, they have not exceeded any limits, they just put in more than the stated match formula requires, more than the 3% safe harbor, and more than the formula they approved for the profit sharing contribution. Apparently, they made a mistake in the calculations, possibly because they had erroneous comp. numbers.