SECTION 1. PURPOSE

.01 This revenue procedure establishes a system of cyclical remedial amendment periods under § 401(b) of the Internal Revenue Code (Code) for individually designed and pre-approved qualified plans.

(1) Under this system, every individually designed plan qualified under § 401(a) has a regular, five-year remedial amendment cycle. The cycles are staggered and spread over five-year periods. That is, the cycles commence in different years for different plans within a five-year period, so that different plans have different cycles. The effect of this system is that plan sponsors need to apply for new determination letters generally only once every five years;

(2) In addition, under this system, every pre-approved plan (that is, every master and prototype (M&P) and volume submitter plan), generally has a regular, six-year remedial amendment cycle. As a result, sponsors, practitioners, and adopters of pre-approved plans generally need to apply for new opinion, advisory, or determination letters only once every six years. Pre-approved defined contribution plans have different six-year cycles than pre-approved defined benefit plans. Thus, the same six-year remedial amendment cycle applies with respect to all pre-approved defined contribution plans, and a separate six-year remedial amendment cycle applies with respect to all pre-approved defined benefit plans. Also, this revenue procedure provides rules for adopting employers to adopt a pre-approved plan after the review process is completed.

.02 This revenue procedure provides that on February 1, 2006, the Service will begin to accept applications for determination letters for individually designed plans that take into account the requirements of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, Pub. L. 107–16 (EGTRRA), and other items that will be identified on the 2005 Cumulative List of Changes in Plan Qualification Requirements.

.03 The system for staggered five-year remedial amendment cycles and the system for six-year amendment/approval cycles are established pursuant to the Commissioner’s authority under § 401(b) of the

Code and its underlying regulations to extend the remedial amendment period, and pursuant to the Commissioner’s authority under § 7805(b) to establish the effective date of any rule or regulation. As a result, sponsors, practitioners, and plan sponsors submit their plan only once for an opinion, advisory, or determination letter that rules on all amendments adopted and made effective within the applicable remedial amendment cycle.

.04 This revenue procedure also further extends the EGTRRA remedial amendment period for both individually designed and pre-approved plans.

(1) The EGTRRA remedial amendment period for individually designed plans is extended to the end of the initial applicable five-year remedial amendment cycle as provided in the chart found in section 12.01. Therefore, plan sponsors may avoid unnecessarily filing two determination letter applications by waiting to file their EGTRRA determination letter applications until the twelve-month period preceding the end of the plan’s initial applicable five-year remedial amendment cycle;

(2) The EGTRRA remedial amendment period for pre-approved plans is extended to the end of the initial applicable six-year remedial amendment cycle as provided in section 18.01. Plan sponsors or practitioners maintaining non-mass submitter plans, as well as word-for-word identical adopters and minor modifiers, have until January 31, 2006, the end of the initial applicable remedial amendment cycle submission period (as stated in section 23 of Rev. Proc. 2005–16, 2005–10 I.R.B. 674), to submit their defined contribution M&P and volume submitter plans for review. This revenue procedure also extends the October 31, 2005 submission deadline set forth in Announcement 2005–36, 2005–21 I.R.B. 1095, to January 31, 2006, for sponsors and practitioners maintaining mass submitter plans and national sponsors who submit applications for defined contribution M&P and volume submitter plans.