Exceeded 401(a)(17) Limit DB Plan - Governmental

[JJRetirement]

It was discovered that a few participants in a governmental defined benefit plan had compensation over the 401(a)(17) limit. Benefits were within 415 limits.

This resulted in an overpayment for a few participants who have retired but also in employer pick up contributions that were higher than they should have been. There seems to be a good amount of guidance (including last year's revenue procedure) and opinion out there on how to correct the overpayment. BUT

How can the pickups be corrected? Assume that they involve years prior to 2015. My immediate thought was that the appropriate correction would be to 'forfeit' under the plan - meaning the employee would not have credit for them - which in this case really boils down to whether contributions would be paid out to a beneficiary if the participant died before receiving annuity payments at least equal to his or her contributions. Then the "Employer", in this case the municipality, would need to make the employee whole for the deduction that was taken from pay in error. The payment to the employee would be reported on a revised W-2 for each applicable calendar year, and the employee would need to re-file taxes for those years.

Is there a better (easier) answer? Something that doesn't involve re-filing individual income tax returns?

Also, could it be possible - consistent with EPCRS principles - to offset the overpayment by the over-contributions? For example, the plan overpaid you $5000, but you overpaid the plan $2000, so you need to pay back $3000 to the plan.

Errors are very small relative to the plan size and involve only a few plan years. The intention is to self correct, not to submit under VCP. (It's understood that the plan wouldn't have reliance on the correction method without VCP compliance statement.)

[Effen]

if this is a governmental, isn't it exempt from 401(a)(17)?

Also, I didn't think this would be a VCP thing since they the IRS doesn't give approval letters for governmental plan documents.

[JJRetirement]

Unfortunately, 401(a)(17) is applicable to governmental plans. I don't think it comes up much because so few governmental employees run up against the limit. It was unexpected in this plan, but it happened in a few unusual cases.

We aren't planning to utilize VCP for this, but there isn't any overall prohibition for governmental plans to use VCP. I know that correction for governmental 457 plans is only available outside of EPCRS, but in this case, it's a traditional defined benefit plan qualified under section 401(a) that has the error.

[My 2 cents]

if this is a governmental, isn't it exempt from 401(a)(17)?

Also, I didn't think this would be a VCP thing since they the IRS doesn't give approval letters for governmental plan documents.

It is from the Section 415 100% of 3-year average compensation limit that governmental plans are exempt. Maybe that is what you were thinking about.