D-letter or no D-letter?

[Belgarath]

Sort of a survey of opinions and/experiences here.

Generally, pre-approved plans are no longer required to obtain determination letters. My question is this: what has been your experience when plan termination rolls around? What I'm really trying to get at is this: if you do a formal plan termination, the IRS reviewer is wanting to see plan documents and amendments all the way back to the year one.

What's your experience if the plan DID apply for (and receive) a D-letter for, say, GUST? When you do a plan termination now, are they only requiring docs/amendments POST D-letter, or are they still going back beyond that? Assuming the former, then it seems like not obtaining a D-letter just postpones the problem and increases difficulty, so that going back to the old practice of requiring a D-letter for all plans might save some agony in the long run. (Of course on a side note, requiring terminating plans to be currently updated for all interim law changes is stupid beyond belief, since operational compliance is always required regardless, and substantially contributes to the difficulty, but that's a gripe for another time.)

Would be interested in your thoughts on ths issue.

[Belgarath]

Just checking back in to see if any thoughts/opinions on this?

[Guest Sieve]

For Form 5310 terminations, the only plan documents required are amendments since the last determination letter. If there has been no prior FDL, then IRS will want all documents since institution of the plan.

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

When completing the 5310, we have put the prototype D letter date in the "most recent D letter" question and supplied a copy of that letter. But we've not done that for any Vol Sub plans.

Our experience was that a GUST prototype was sometimes considered as having a D letter, but not a GUST volume submitter.

If the sponsor was on a GUST prototype, the reviewer rarely asked for the TRA'86 document (and subsequent amendments). It seems to depend on the reviewer and/or office.

If the sponsor used a GUST Vol Sub, the reviewer almost always asks for a copy of the TRA86 document (and amendments through GUST).

Several years ago we decided to always include the pre-GUST document anyway (for Vol Sub plans) as long as it was easily available, so we rarely get requests for the older documents.

We've not (yet) had a Form 5310 reviewer ask for a document older than TRA86.