Most recent d-letter?

[Oh so SIMPLE]

A new-to-us client has maintained a plan that dates back to 1981. It has never received a determination letter from the IRS. Originally, it was a money purchase pension plan.

Apparently, no TEFRA/DEFRA/REA amendment was timely made. This was discovered in the early 1990s, as part of the TRA '86 restatement process.

I'm assuming that in that pre-EPCRS era, the provider did not have the option of a plan document failure fix with minor penalty as there now is. It appears that provider simply restated the plan as a standardized money purchase pension plan in the early 1990s to give the plan reliance on that provider's standardized prototype notification letter, per Rev Proc 89-13, section 11.02.

Shortly thereafter, the plan was restated again, but this time as a standardized profit sharing plan. Again, reliance on provider's notification letter from the IRS. (This followed so closely on the heels of the restatement to the standardized money purchase pension plan that it appears that step may merely have been made by the prior provider to lay claim to Rev Proc 89-13, section 11.02 reliance.)

The plan was timely restated for GUST. Yet again, reliance on provider's notification letter from the IRS.

The employer recently hired our firm to restate for EGTRRA. The plan design changes now wanted require that the prototype used be in the non-standardized form.

If we prepare an IRS Form 5307 application, from which notification letter would we have to provide later documents? or would it be from plan inception?

The argument for the TRA '86 notification letter is that if a determination letter application (Form 5307) had been made in the later 1990s, that TRA '86 notification letter and adoption agreement (and amendment in the interim until the application was made) was all that would then have been required.

The argument for documents from plan inception is that beginning with the GUST restatements, reliance on adoption of a standardized prototype's notification letter did not count as the most recent determination letter for the plan.

Or, would it simply be better to prepare a document failure VCP application at the same time as now making a determination letter application?