401k Plan Termination - What Notice Required?

When terminating a 401k plan, I confused about when a Notice to Interested Parties is required. Is a Notice required a certain number of days before Form 5310 filed? Or is a Notice required a certain number of days before the Plan is actually amended to terminate? We have adopted a Board Resolution to terminate later in the year. However, we want to file Form 5310 now. So I wasn't sure if a Notice needed to be sent to participants before the 5310 filing or if that Notice can be done in several months, which would be closer to the actual Plan termination date.

Thanks.

In general, no notice is required for a 401(k) plan termination. The notice you are asking about only applies because you are seeking a determination on the termination.

The instructions for Form 5310, line 19 states

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 If “Yes” is checked, it means that each employee has been notified as required by Regulations section 1.7476-1. 

Following the reference to 1.7476-1(a)(i)

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For the rules for giving notice to interested parties, see § 1.7476–2 and paragraph (o) of § 601.201 of this chapter (Statement of Procedural Rules).

And on to 1.7476-2(b) 

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(b) Nature of notice. The notice required by this section shall—

(1) Contain the information and be given within the time period prescribed in § 601.201(o)(3) of this chapter

601.201(o)(3) is a very long section, but the timing rule you are looking for is in subsection (xv)

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(xv) When the notice referred to in paragraph (o)(3)(xiv) of this section is given in the manner set forth in § 1.7476–2(c) of this chapter, such notice must be given not less than 10 days nor more than 24 days prior to the date the application for a determination is made. See paragraph (o)(3)(xxi) of this section for determining when an application is made. If, however, an application is returned to the applicant for failure to adequately satisfy the notification requirement with respect to a particular group or class of interested parties, the applicant need not cause notice to be given to those groups or classes of interested parties with respect to which the notice requirement was already satisfied merely because, as a result of the resubmission of the application, the time limitations of this paragraph (o)(3)(xv) would not be met.

Presumably, the notice has to be given to interested parties before the application is filed, so that an interested party has the opportunity to raise a complaint with IRS during the determination process if they feel that IRS ought to find against the plan.

So it sounds like a Notice must be sent prior to the 5310 filing, correct?

Also, what has been folks' experience with terminating a 401k plan without obtaining a determination letter?