Plan Eligibility

This plan has a 1 YOS, age 21, 1000 hours with monthly entry dates.  It uses the anniversary date of hire for the first and all subsequent years for eligibility.  An employee hires 8/28/16, terminates 9/14/16 and rehires 2/25/17.  He does not work 1000 hours in his first year (8/28/16 to 8/27/17).  The client wants to use the 2/25/17 date as his hire date.  The plan document only discusses the original hire date.  I haven't found anything that indicates we could use a rehire date to determine eligibility.  If the 2/25/17 hire date is used, he enters on 3/1/18.  If we continue with the original hire date, he enters on 9/1/18.  Does anyone have any input on using a rehire date vs. the original date of hire to determine eligibility?

My understanding is you always use original hire date to determine eligibility.  Terminating and being rehired may affect vesting depending on the length of the break in service and the plan document or possibly waiting to enter the plan, but not to determine eligibility.  I guess the plan could be amended to plan year eligibility after the first year and quarterly entry.  If participant worked 1,000 hrs in 2017, would come in 4/1/18 along with everyone else who met that requirement.  

the Accudraft document (from 10 or so years ago, doubt it has changed) had the following (emphasis mine)

Reemployment of an Employee Before a Break In Service and Before Eligibility Requirements Are Satisfied. For any Plan Year in which the eligibility requirements under Section 2.1 are based on Years of Service, if an Employee Terminates Employment with the Employer prior to satisfying the eligibility requirements in Section 2.1 and the Employee is subsequently reemployed by the Employer before incurring a Break in Service, then (1) the Employee's pre-termination Year(s)  of Service (and Hours of Service during any computation period) will be counted in determining the satisfaction of such eligibility requirements, and for all other purposes, as applicable, and (2) the Eligibility Computation Period, Vesting Computation Period, and/or benefit accrual computation period, as applicable, will remain unchanged

a different document has (sorry I saved this years ago but didn't put down which provider - since it indicates section 3.5 which is break in service rules it was probably a corbel or variation of corbel document)

(c) Rehired Eligible Employee who had not satisfied eligibility. If any Eligible Employee who had not satisfied the Plan's

eligibility requirements is rehired after severance from employment, then such Eligible Employee shall become a Participant in the Plan in accordance with the eligibility requirements set forth in the Adoption Agreement and the Plan. However, in applying any shift in an eligibility computation period, the Eligible Employee is not treated as a new hire unless prior service is disregarded in accordance with Section 3.5(d) below. (3.5d is the break in service rules)

The document will answer this question in my opinion and I would be shocked if it supports the idea of using the rehire date in this case. 

I agree with the other responses being technically correct.  But if a sponsor wanted to use a rehire date as a hire date because it brought someone in earlier in the same year I doubt I would make a fuss over it.

Having said that, are you positive the eligibility measuring period doesn't switch to the plan year (presumable calendar) if someone doesn't have 1000 hours in their first employment year?  In that case, if he worked 1000 hours in calendar 2017 he would enter 1/1/18.  All (I think) of our plans are written that way because we can't be bothered checking on hours for continuous off-calendar years.

Thanks everyone for your answers.  The plan does not shift to calendar year for eligibility.  The client requested that the plan be designed to use anniversary of hire date.  They are our only client that does that.