SECTION 24. REMEDIAL

AMENDMENT PERIOD

.01 Announcement 2004–71, 2004–40 I.R.B. 569, contained a draft revenue procedure with the Service’s procedures for issuing letters for pre-approved plans under a regular, six-year remedial amendment cycle and individually designed plans under a staggered five-year remedial amendment cycle. That revenue procedure is expected to be finalized in the near future. It will extend a plan’s EGTRRA remedial amendment period to the end of the applicable cycle. It will also explain the conditions under which an adopting employer who timely adopts the pre-approved plan will be treated as having adopted the plan within the employer’s six-year remedial amendment cycle, and which Cumulative List will apply in the case of plans that become individually designed under the circumstances described in 24.02 below. The Service will announce the deadline for timely adoption after the pre-approved documents have been reviewed, but it is expected that employers will generally have two years in which to adopt.

.02 An employer that has adopted an M&P plan or a VS specimen plan may have modified the plan in such a way that the plan, as adopted by the employer, would not be considered an M&P plan or

a VS plan. Nevertheless, such a plan will generally be treated as an M&P or VS plan and will be allowed to remain within the six-year remedial amendment cycle. Notwithstanding the above, if the employer has amended the plan to incorporate a type of plan not allowable in the VS or M&P program, whichever is applicable, (for example, to incorporate an ESOP, which is not allowed in either the M&P or VS program) the employer’s plan will be considered to be an individually designed plan for purposes of this revenue procedure. In that case, the remedial amendment cycle in which the employer impermissibly amends the VS or M&P plan will remain the six-year remedial amendment cycle until that cycle expires. However, the subsequent remedial amendment period is the five-year remedial amendment cycle.

.03 Notwithstanding any of the above provisions in .02, the Service may in its discretion determine that such a plan is an individually designed plan that will not receive an extended remedial amendment cycle, due to the nature and extent of the amendments.