Treasury’s annual blueprint for the guidance it expects to issue in the coming year — the Priority Guidance Plan — is out for 2014-2015, and retirement plans are on its agenda.
As is usually the case, it is an ambitious plan. Of course, the road to certain places is paved with good intentions, and simply being listed is not necessarily a guarantee of future results. In fact, Treasury points out that it does not place any deadline on completion of projects. Nonetheless, there will be items on the list about which they will issue guidance — so at the very least it’s good to know what could be coming between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015.
The plan contains 42 priorities concerning retirement benefits (13.6% of all the projects listed), two of which — final Code Section 401(a)(9) regulations on deferred annuities and the withdrawal of proposed regulations on the “one-rollover-per-year” limitation under Treas. Reg. §1.408-4(b)(4)(ii) — have already been completed.
The retirement-related priorities include:
- revenue ruling relating to the recovery of basis under a phased retirement program
- regulations on exceptions to additional tax under Code Section 72(t) on early distributions from retirement plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
- regulations on the application of the normal retirement age regulations under Section 401(a) to governmental plans
- regulations on the definition of governmental plan under Code Section 414(d)
- regulations on closed defined benefit plans
- guidance regarding revisions to the determination letter process and interim amendment procedures
- guidance regarding substantiation of hardship distributions
- guidance regarding qualified nonelective contributions (QNECs) and qualified matching contributions (QMACs)
- guidance under Code Sections 401(k)(12) and (13) on safe harbor 401(k) plans regarding certain mid-year changes and certain business transactions
- guidance under Code Section 404 on deductions for employer contributions to qualified plans
- guidance on rules applicable to IRAs
- final regulations relating to hybrid plans
- additional guidance on issues relating to lifetime income from retirement plans
- a revenue procedure amending Rev. Proc. 2013-12 (EPCRS) to provide guidance with regard to certain corrections
Several of the new items that were added to the list will be of particular interest to ASPPA members, says Craig Hoffman, ASPPA’s General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Affairs. These include guidance on the substantiation requirements for hardship distributions, guidance regarding QNECs and QMACs and the long-awaited guidelines on the types of amendments that may be made to safe harbor 401(k) plans mid-year. “It was good to see that the mid-year amendments to safe harbor plans issue has finally been added to the list,” Hoffman notes.
But he cautions that simply being listed may not necessarily mean that any of the items will be completed this year or next, noting, “Many of these projects stay on the guidance plan for years, so it remains to be seen what will come out during the fiscal year.”
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