Successive Transactions in Same Plan Year

[Brian Haynes]

Assuming that a parent company has two subsidiaries, A and B and that A's stock is sold to an unrelated buyer and is exempt from withdrawal liability under 4218(l) and later on in the Pension Fund's same plan year the assets of B are sold to a different unrelated buyer under Section 4204, provided the transactions are otherwise properly treated as separate (and there was no principal purpose to evade or avoid liability), does the fact they occur in the same plan year give the Pension Fund an argument that they should be treated together so that a complete withdrawal somehow occurs.? To the extent they are truly separate and occur in separate plan years I feel pretty good about no liability (each transaction will have soley triggered the relevant liability but for the statutory exemption) but wondered if there is an additional problem if both transactions occur in the same plan year. I understand that it makes it harder to argue that the transactions are separate but in fact they are. Thanks.