IRS Provides Help to Ensure Plan Qualification

May 5, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Before submitting a determination letter application to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), plan sponsors can access forms and documents used by Employee Plans Specialists during their review of retirement plans to help ensure qualification.

Via the IRS Web site sponsors can obtain Employee Plans Alert Guidelines, Explanations, and Plan Deficiency Paragraphs.   The Alert Guidelines are worksheets used to see if provisions of a retirement plan are in compliance with applicable law. The worksheets are broken down by subject matter such as vesting, coverage, contribution and benefit limits, and plan distributions.   Not all worksheets will apply to all plans.

Each worksheet has an accompanying Explanation which provide citations to and guidelines for the applicable law.

Plan Deficiency Paragraphs are checklists with pre-approved wording that will satisfy IRS Code requirements.   Use of the approved language will help ensure plan qualification.

The IRS forms and documents can be accessed  here .

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