Amendment increasing benefits to only a few?

[Guest Bearlee]

If a DB Plan Sponsor wants to give 4 NHCEs non-reduced benefits without making NRA, naming them by amendment, is this allowable? This just doesn't seem right but seems that I have seen amendments like these. Citations? Thank you.

[david rigby]

Is this an Early Retirement window? If so, you can discriminate in favor of NHCE's, but the preferred method is to identify the "target" employees by something other than name, such as classification, department, age and service, combination of above factors, etc.

[SoCalActuary]

There are lots of perfectly acceptable methods to earmark specific benefits to specific people within a plan.

It simply results in a non-safe-harbor plan that must be administered more carefully.

As mentioned above, discrimination in favor of any group of NHCEs is something the IRS will not stop.

Of course, it may result in work-place discrimination subject to EEOC issues, such as targeting only those

who play golf with the boss, or a specific ethnic group, or those without health claims, etc. But that issue is much more contentious then ERISA compliance.