"I've always found the following requirement somewhat scary, as it is subjective on the part of the IRS: An explanation of how the failure occurred and a demonstration of the existence at the time of practices and procedures reasonably designed to promote and facilitate overall compliance. Obviously, even if you have great procedures, mistakes can happen, which is one reason that EPCRS exists. I'm curious if anyone has ever had a plan audited, where SCP was used, and the IRS disallowed the SCP due to a perceived defect in such 'reasonable' procedures?"

"We have a self-funded client whose attorney mentioned the DOL recently subpoenaed a TPA regarding plan documents that exclude Marriage & Family Therapy. The attorney feels the self-funded medical plan may want to be amended to cover it based on the DOL's subpoena/the topic being on the radar. Does anyone have knowledge of which case this is in reference to? If so, can you please link it? The TPA (BUCA) hasn't heard anything of such a subpoena and has no clients that cover Marriage and Family Therapy. I've got e-mails out to our internal Compliance Team and the TPA's. Any other advice? We do not have a client with any carrier that covers this type of therapy at present."

"[1] I am stumped trying to determine whether a plan that contains this language would be permissible: The amount of the loan is limited to the lesser of $50,000 or 50% of the account value of a date when the loan is issued. This would seem to comply with 72(p) but I don't see many plans phrased this way. Is it incorrect? [2] Also, most plan loan applications request dollar amounts and not percentages. Why is this?"

"So, now that we have self-certification for hardship reasons for hardship withdrawals.... Some plans allow loans only for hardship reasons. We generally draft the loan procedure to define 'hardship' as one or more of the 401(k) 'safe harbor' hardship reasons. Occasionally, there are other oddball hardship reasons which are added due to a specific participant situation -- furnace died, dog ate the homework, broke a fingernail, etc.... Anyone see a problem with allowing employee self-certification for a hardship reason that is one of the 401(k) 'safe harbor' hardships?"

"I have an plan on an FTW document. The eligibility is 7g. completion of 3 consecutive months of service (not to exceed 12; hours of service failsafe applies). Entry dates are 1/1 & 7/1. I have an employee hired 4/3/2023. Would they enter the plan 7/1/2023 or 1/1/2024? I am thinking that if they they worked at least 1 hour in April, May and June, they would enter 7/1/2023."