Hardship Distributions in a Gov't Money Purchase Plan

[PainPA]

Can a Governmental Money Purchase Plan allow hardships?

I was thinking that the Title I exemptions for gov't plan allowed for them.

[QDROphile]

Name your exemption.

[PainPA]

I have none, I was referencing an outline on benifitsattorney.com and saw that this was a modified version.

I was just hoping that it was allowed for gov't plan sponsors and not for corporate.

[Everett Moreland]

See the following from Revenue Ruling 69-421 (declared obsolete by Revenue Ruling 72-488):

"Provisions may also be made in stock bonus and profit-sharing plans for accelerated distributions because of hardship provided that the term 'hardship' is defined, the rules with respect thereto are uniformly and consistently applied, and the distributable portion does not exceed the employee's vested interest. Similar provisions, however, are not permissible under a pension plan, since, as provided for in section 1.401-1(b)(1)(i) of the regulations, such a plan is established and maintained 'primarily to provide systematically for the payment of definitely determinable benefits to * * * employees over a period of years, usually for life, after retirement.'"

My guess is that a pension plan could be amended to allow hardship distributions after the earlier of normal retirement age and age 62, but I've not checked this.

[PainPA]

The details surrounding this plan is that I can tell it was once a Money Purchase from some of the old documents. However, the current one in place is a Profit Sharing, which hardships are allowed. The client knows from industry conferences that all their counterparts have a Money Purchase. I was going to make the necessary adjustments to make this happen but they do not want to give up the hardship withdrawals.