The IRS’s 2007 403(b) regulations fundamentally altered the 403(b) marketplace. The imposition by of those regulations of greater responsibility on 403(b) plan sponsors for maintaining the continued tax favored status of their plans triggered, among other things, efforts by a number of employers, employer related groups and advisers to attempt to consolidate both the compliance
Congress is taking a well crafted, though pretty unusual, approach to the manner in which it has chosen to allow 403(b) plans to participate in PEPs. It is doing so in a way which seems to be a recognition of the impact of the details that associate to these sorts of dramatic changes. What is noteworthy is that 403(b) PEPs are going to be enabled through changes to 403(b), and not by simply including them in the definitional sections of 413(e), and through changes to ERISA’s PEP language under Sections 3(43) and 3(44). This is critically important because had Congress chosen to simply amend 413(e), it would have opened a Pandora’s box of details which would have demanded clumsy (and perhaps extensive) regulatory fixes.
Continue Reading SECURE 2.0’s 403(b) PEP Rules Will Be, Well, Different…..