When must plan documents be amended to reflect the changes made by the Pension Protection Act?
Rev. 08/17/06 , E-mail Alert 2006-17

The general effective date of many of the provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) is the first day of the 2009 plan year. Though the actual effective dates of various provisions of PPA range from 2002 through 2012, plan documents will not have to be amended to add PPA provisions until the last day of the 2009 plan year. As is the usual custom, governmental and collective bargaining plans will have two additional years to amend.

This seemingly is a setback for the IRS back in its attempt to impose interim amendment requirements instead of allowing plans to operationally comply with statutory changes with subsequent amendments or restatements to reflect the actual operation.

We will take a wait and see position as to whether Treasury and the IRS will issue guidance on an interim amendment, perhaps as early as the 2007 plan year for PPA provisions that take effect beginning in 2007; or whether the IRS will wait until 2009. We do not yet know about any "good-faith" amendment similar to the EGTRRA "good faith" amendments which IRS required under Notice 2001-56.