Is there a minimum service requirement to accrue a benefit

[Belgarath]

Ignoring the wisdom or folly of starting a DB plan for a start-up company...

A question came up as to whether a new business - started up on 9/3/15, and has a 9/30/fiscal year end - can install a defined benefit plan, and participants accrue a full year's benefit for 2015? Is there a minimum hours/service requirement?

Also, and I believe this is debatable, can the plan effective date predate the existence of the corporation? I've seen this done a lot in DC plans, to avoid short plan/limitation years, but I'm not sure if this is common in DB plans? I've not heard of the IRS challenging this in a DC plan - but I don't know what the actuaries of the world think about this on DB plans? (debatable in DC plans as well, but that's a different subject)


Thanks.

[Mike Preston]

No minimum. Just make sure document dovetails to client wishes. No problem with retro effective date pre-dating existence of corp. that I'm aware of.

[Belgarath]

Thanks Mike.