IRS Announcement 2004-71 Requests Comments on Staggered Remedial Amendment Periods
Rev. 09/23/04, E-mail Alert 2004-19

The IRS is asking for comments (Announcement 2004-71) on its draft revenue procedure for staggered remedial amendment periods.

Staggered Remedial Amendment Request for Comments on Revenue Procedure
A system of recurring Remedial Amendment Cycles (RAC)

• •A five-year staggered RAC for individually designed plans.
         Based on last digit of taxpayer TIN
         Special rules for:
         plans maintained by more than one employer
         plans maintained by a controlled group or affiliated service group
  
• • A six-year RAC for pre-approved plans (Master and Prototype, and Volume Submitter Plans)
         Defined Benefit Plans would be on a different cycle from Defined Contribution Plans        to spread the work more evenly over time.
         Sponsors of pre-approved documents will submit their plan documents for new        opinion/advisory letter in accordance with a schedule in the Rev. Proc.
         IRS would announce the deadline for timely adoption of the pre-approved        documents by employers after the pre-approved documents have been reviewed.        Generally, adopting employers will have two years to adopt the pre-approved plan.
  
                                                 

IRS anticipates opening the determination letter program for individually-designed EGTRRA Documents on February 1, 2006. The EGTRRA opinion/advisory letter process for pre-approved defined contribution plans is expected to open on February 1, 2005.

We'll keep you posted of developments in the remedial amendment process.

For Announcement 2004-71 click here.