Section 415 language - multiple plans of one employer

[Belgarath]

I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning! Very strange question here...

Employer has DB plan with 7/1-6/30 plan and limitation year.

Employer also apparently has an ERISA 403(b) plan with a calendar year limitation year. I have no idea, at this point, what the 403(b) plan language says about limitation years if more than one plan is maintained by the employer.

The DB plan has some fairly standard (or at least it used to be) language that all plans of the employer must have the same limitation year.

This isn't really a document error - nothing wrong with the document language. It's more of an operational error than anything else, but what is the operational error to correct? There's no actual 415 violation involved!

Would you just amend that language out of the plan and be done with it? Amend and submit for a determination letter? Ignore it until next go-round with updating documents?

[Everett Moreland]

For 415 purposes, an employer's 403(b) plan is almost always treated as maintained by each participant in the 403(b) plan, not by the employer. See 1.415(f)-1(f) and the exception in 1.415(f)-1(f)(2). So it is unlikely there is an error.