PPA 06 restatement effective date 2016 or 2017?

[Pension Panda]

After three straight months of reminding and calling we still had 2 clients with 2016 safe harbor contribution language in their prototype plan document who did not choose to sign their PPA 06 restated plan documents before December 31, 2015. As the restatements could have contained desired changes (had they responded before November 30th) they are no longer able to have those changes in 2016.

We still need to restate these documents for PPA 06. If it were allowed, we would like to restate the entire PPA 06 Adoption Agreement effective January 1, 2017 with the desired changes. From everything I've read it appears we can only rely on the EGTRRA IRS opinion letter through April 30, 2016 so I suspect the answer is no. If no, we will have to create a PPA 06 restated document with no changes from EGTRRA to be effective retroactive January 1, 2016 and any prospective changes for 2017 could be made via amendment. Those amendments and SMMs are just so untidy!

Question: Is the deadline of April 30, 2016 for signing the PPA 06 restatement or for the effective date of the PPA 06 restatement?

[Bird]

I'd say call your document provider to be sure, but I think the necessary effective date changes are buried in the document, and you could have them signed by Apr 30 with an effective date of Jan 1 2017.

But the safest thing might be to have a Jan 1 2016 general effective date and special effective date(s) for the specific change(s) you want for 2017.

[Pension Panda]

Excellent advice. I contacted Sunguard Relius to find out. They responded "It needs to be restated prior to April 30, 2016 and it needs to have an effective date prior to April 30, 2016. 2017 is too late".

Bummer.