SECTION 17. ADVISORY

LETTERS - INSTRUCTIONS TO VS PRACTITIONERS

.01 Employee Plans Rulings and Agreements Issues Advisory Letters - Employee Plans Rulings and Agreements will, upon the request of a VS practitioner, issue an advisory letter as to the acceptability of the form of the VS practitioner’s specimen plan under § 401(a) or 403(a).

.02 Procedure for Requesting Advisory Letters - A request for an advisory letter relating to a specimen plan must be submitted on the current version of Form 4461, Application for Approval of Mas- ter or Prototype or Volume Submitter De- fined Contribution Plans, Form 4461-A, Application for Approval of Master or Pro- totype or Volume Submitter Defined Ben- efit Plans, or Form 4461-B, Application for Approval of Master or Prototype or Volume Submitter Plans Mass Submitter Adopting Sponsor or Practitioner, as appropriate. The Service intends to revise Forms 4461, 4461-A, and 4461-B. Until the forms have been revised, a request for an advisory letter should be accompanied by the appropriate form with the following items, if applicable, completed:

(1) Form 4461 - Complete Part 1, items 1–9, and Attachment 1 which can be accessed at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- tege/form4461_attachment.pdf

(2) Form 4461-B - Complete in its entirety.

(3) Form 4461-A (relates to DB plans)

• Complete Part 1 and an attachment that the Service will provide at a future date

These forms may be downloaded from the Internet at the following address: http://www.irs.gov . All information on the first page of the application must be typed. The request must be sent to the address in section 20. The VS request must be accompanied by the required user fee submitted with Form 8717, User Fee for Employee Plan Determination, Opinion and Advisory Letter Request, and a signed certification that all necessary amendments required by the Service to retain the qualified status of the VS practitioner’s specimen plan have been made and communicated to all adopting employers. ⁶ See http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/cert_in- terim_amendments.pdf for certification.

.03 Separate Specimen Plans and Applications Required for Different Categories of Plans

(1) Specimen plans that consist of a basic plan document and adoption agreement. Except as provided in this section 17.03(1), the rules in section 7.04 (disregarding references therein to standardized and nonstandardized plans) apply to a specimen plan that consists of a basic plan

document and adoption agreement as if the specimen plan were an M&P plan. Thus, a single basic plan document may not be used in conjunction with both defined contribution specimen plans and defined benefit specimen plans. In addition, a defined contribution specimen plan may not include any combination of profit-sharing, money purchase (other than target benefit), and target benefit plan. Accordingly, separate adoption agreements are required for each of these types of defined contribution specimen plans. The separate defined contribution adoption agreements may be associated with the same defined contribution basic plan document, but the provisions of the basic plan document must be identical for all specimen plans using that document (that is, no elective or optional features). Likewise, multiple defined benefit adoption agreements may be associated with a single defined benefit basic plan document if the provisions of the basic plan document are identical for all specimen plans using that document (that is, no elective or optional features). Separate adoption agreements are not required for defined benefit specimen plans that are integrated ( i.e., provide for permitted disparity) and defined benefit specimen plans that are non-integrated. Instead, a single defined benefit adoption agreement may provide options for both integrated and non-integrated benefit formulas.

In addition, the same basic plan document may not be used for both nongovernmental specimen plans ( i.e., specimen plans that are not described in § 414(d)) and governmental specimen plans. However, separate governmental defined contribution specimen plans may have the same basic plan document and separate governmental defined benefit specimen plans may have the same basic plan document.

A separate application form is required to be submitted for each specimen plan, that is, for each basic plan document/adoption agreement combination (where the specimen plan consists of a basic plan document and adoption agreement). In the case of a simultaneous submission of plans using the same basic plan document, only one copy of the basic plan document should be provided. If the requests are not

6 See footnote 4 for interim user fee information under Rev. Proc. 2011–8, User fees for employee plans and exempt organizations, as modified by Announcement 2011–8, until Form 8717, User Fee for Employee Plan Determination, Opinion and Advisory Letter Request, is modified.

October 31, 2011 622 2011–44 I.R.B.

(1) Form 4461 - Complete Part 1, items 1–9, and Attachment 1 which can be accessed at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- tege/form4461_attachment.pdf

(2) Form 4461-B - Complete in its entirety.

(3) Form 4461-A (relates to DB plans)

• Complete Part 1, and an attachment that the Service will provide at a future date.

These forms may be downloaded from the Internet at the following address: http://www.irs.gov . All information on the first page of the application must be typed. The request must be sent to the address in section 20. The VS request must be accompanied by the required user fee submitted with Form 8717, User Fee for Employee Plan Determination, Opinion, and Advisory Letter Request, and a signed certification that all necessary amendments required by the Service to retain the qualified status of the VS practitioner’s specimen plan have been made and communicated to all adopting employers. ⁷ See http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/cert_in- terim_amendments.pdf for certification.