Can you stop and restart Safe Harbor Match Contributions the same Plan

[Guest UKH]

With the IRS Notice 2000-3, the plan sponsors were able to stop doing the safe harbor match provided they issued a notice atleast 30 days prior to the date the plan sponsor wanted to discontinue the safe harbor match.

Can a Plan however skip 1 quarter from doing the safe harbor match and restart the safe harbor match the next quarter? If they are allowed to restart do they have to make up the safe harbor match and also what about testing?

The notice only mentions that if they decided to stop doing the match then they would go back to testing for the entire plan year using the current testing method.

Thank you and Happy New Year to all the members!

[wmyer]

The intent of 2000-3 is that the employer can stop the match mid-year and become a traditional 401(k) for the year, with deemed current year testing and with a requirement to do the match up to the effective date termination of the match. Since the plan is now a traditional 401(k) after doing so, it can't switch back to Safe Harbor until the beginning of the following plan year, as long as it fulfills the proper notice requirement at that time.