Gateway Amendment

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

Our volume submitter cross-tested DC plans have a resolution and a Gateway amendment (signed as late as 10-14-2003). We have been placing that same language (it has been cut and pasted) at the end of the vol sub basic document ever since. We just talked to another practitioner who used the (same provider for their vol sub doc). They do not have any gateway amendments in place for plans that were setup before 2005 (and many of them are cross-tested plans). What's the story regarding these gateway amendments for these vol sub documents?

[Blinky the 3-eyed Fish]

What story are you looking for? A gateway amendment is only needed out of necessity where the gateway minimum is required and you have no way under the plan to provide the proper allocation. What I don't know is if LRM's for EGTRRA restatements will require gateway language in docs.

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

I checked with our document sponsor. It turns out that the document sponsor's volume submitter document from 2002 was approved by the IRS without the gateway language. The document sponsor was allowed to change their vol sub document in 2003 to include the gateway language, but only prospectively. Any use of gateway under that document for the 2002 year had to be adopted within 9.5 months after year-end.

The other practitioner did not know about this (they used the same document sponsor as ourselves).