Due to payroll issue, plan sponsor failed to implement changes made to existing 401(k) plan participants' elective deferrals for two payroll periods. So there is a mix of participants who elected to increase deferral percentage and failed to defer enough as well as participants who decreased their deferral percentage and now have contributed more than they intended. Plan Sponsor is clear on fix for those who failed to have their deferral amounts increased and will give notice and correct those accounts via EPCRS guidelines.
What is less clear are the possible alternatives for participants who didn't have decreases implemented and so deferred too much to the plan. Plan sponsor does not want to forfeit amounts from participants' accounts and/or make additional payments to participants through payroll to get them the additional pay they missed. Instead, company wants to correct this (at
least in all cases possible) through payroll system adjustments. For example, somebody that was deferring 10% and elected to decrease deferral to 5% (and thus had two payrolls with an extra 5% deferred) will have "negative 401(k) deferrals" for the next couple of payrolls.
If I understand the proposed correction process correctly, that seems to mean they will basically offset or adjust participants' future 401(k) deferrals to reduce the contributions by the excess amounts contributed. So while next two payrolls should have a 5% 401(k) deferral, they will instead show a negative 5% 401(k) deferral and participants will basically not have any salary deferred and contributed to the 401(k) Plan. After 2 pay periods, the total deferral amounts will be correct and equal to what participant would have deferred if the election change had been timely processed.
Is it generally possible to
correct this sort of mistake in this or a similar manner by essentially adjusting within the payroll system? If not squarely covered under SCP, do others have experience with these sorts of corrections getting approved under VCP? Not sure exactly what you do with individuals who have dropped deferral rate down to 0% or have since terminated employment? Guess you could just arrange for forfeitures in those cases if that is only way to fix. Guess you could also forfeit excess earnings but still make main deferral adjustments via payroll? Thanks for any thoughts or experience.