IRS Closes GUST, Opens EGTRRA
Rev. 05/26/05, E-mail Alert 2005-10


The deadline for submitting GUST prototype and volume submitter defined contribution plans to the IRS for approval is June 15, 2005. The submission date for EGTRRA pre-approved plan documents (prototype and volume submitter) for both the drafters of those plans and their sponsor clients is October 31, 2005.

Closing of GUST Letter Program for Defined Contribution Pre-approved Plans

GUST Program Closing

In Announcement 2005-36, released May 9th, the IRS announced the closing of the GUST defined contribution pre-approved program as of June 15, 2005. Thus, Sponsors of pre-approved Prototype (both mass submitter identical adopters and non-mass submitters) and volume submitter plans who desire a GUST letter must submit for the request for the Opinion/Advisory letters by June 15. Submissions after that date will be returned with the user fee.

In anticipation of the GUST program closing, the IRS returned some plan submissions erroneously after the opening of the EGTRRA program on February 17, 2005. However, upon realizing that there had been no prior notice of the program closing, the IRS decided to make a formal announcement prospectively. Therefore, any submissions that had been returned due to the program being closed may be resubmitted to the appropriate office before June 15th.

As other EGTRRA programs open for individually designed plans and pre-approved defined benefit plans open, the Service will announce the closing of the appropriate GUST letter programs.

EGTRRA Submission Deadline for Mass Submitter Plans

Pursuant to the draft Revenue Procedure attached to Announcement 2004-71, Announcement 2005-36 also clarified that the deadline for mass submitter and large national plan defined contribution EGTRRA submissions is October 31, 2005. Submission of defined contribution non-mass submitter plans are subject to the January 31, 2006 deadline put forth in Revenue Procedure 2005-16.

The surprise in this announcement is that not only the mass-submitters have to be submitted by October 31, 2005, but also all the identical adopters. Most mass submitters didn’t think that they would have to submit their identical adopter sponsors until the January 31, 2006 deadline. This means that a lot of paper work has to be completed by the earlier deadline. However, with large portions of the LRMs still unavailable from the IRS, for example, the cross-testing language, the Required Minimum Distribution language, the Deemed IRA language, not to mention the Roth 401(k) language, the deadline may need to be extended. We expect to be contacting all of our document clients by September 1, to do the paperwork for the October 31 submission. Stay tuned and we will let you know as things develop.