After many years of wading through a variety of retirement plan platforms and services, I can honestly say “I will never stop being fascinated”.  I do believe, with 100% certainty, that I will never be able to anticipate every possible compliance issue.    However, with as much certainty, I can say “processes, procedures and effective internal controls are vital to avoiding possible compliance gaps and hiccups and maintain a successful retirement plan.”

The IRS recognizes that gaps and hiccups will arise when comparing FORM, the plan document & design, to the plan’s operations, administrative processes and procedural activities.  The IRS provides guidance for plan sponsors to self-correct with the understanding that it isn’t as simple as just finding the gap or hiccup.  The IRS expects the plan sponsor to take three steps when gaps or hiccups arise…
Continue Reading Rome was not built in a day… build internal controls one step at a time

When considering these new plan document rules and the new EPCRS together, there is a massive volume of sometimes difficult detail in the guidance. Much of it is thoughtful, some of it controversial and, I would venture to say, some of it innovative. For example, it ventures into the world of effectively requiring pre-approved plans while staying within its regulatory bounds (as we’ll be discussing in future blogs). The most striking aspect of this effort, however, is what seems to be a newly institutionalized view that 403(b) plans are, in fact, much different than 401(a) plans, and often demands much different treatment.
Continue Reading Bringing Some Sanity to Calamity: 403(b)’s New Document Rules

For 403(b) late adopters of plan documents,the VCP submission is conditioned upon adoption of a plan document which is intended to comply with 403(b); the plan, in operation, must have acted in accordance with a reasonable interpretation of 403(b) during the period of time for which relief is requested; and, for that period, the plan sponsor must have engaged in a compliance review, under which it used its best efforts to find operational problems and to correct them in accordance with the principles under EPCRS. For Audit CAP, this also appears to be the required correction.
Continue Reading The “Best Efforts” Standard of the 403(b) EPCRS

Be prepared to work hard when you need to take a 403(b) plan through the new EPCRS process under Rev Proc 2013-12-as many of you will need to do soon- especially if you have to use the VCP process, or are defending an audit under CAP.It is going to be complicated.This is not necessarily the fault of the drafters of the Rev Proc. They were stuck with a very difficult task: to try to make something which is fundamentally different from a 401(a) plan still fit uniformly into the 401(a) correction scheme.
Continue Reading The New 403(b) EPCRS Rules: Its, Um, Complicated…..