SECTION 6. STANDARDIZED

PROTOTYPE PLANS AND NONSTANDARDIZED PROTOTYPE PLANS

.01 Each § 403(b) prototype plan is either a standardized plan or a nonstandardized plan. A § 403(b) prototype plan is a standardized plan if:

(1) the only contributions which an adopting eligible employer may elect to provide under the plan are elective deferrals; or

(2) the form of the plan satisfies the requirements of section 6.02 with respect to any contributions under the plan other than elective deferrals, irrespective of the elections the adopting eligible employer makes in the adoption agreement, and without regard to the terms of any investment arrangements under the plan or any documents incorporated by reference into the plan.

.02 The form of a § 403(b) prototype plan satisfies the requirements of this section 6.02 with respect to any contributions under the plan other than elective deferrals if all of the following conditions are satisfied with respect to such contributions:

(1) The plan by its terms benefits all employees except those who may be excluded under § 1.410(b)–6. For this purpose, “employee” means an employee, within the meaning of § 1.403(b)–2(b)(9), of the adopting eligible employer and any eligible employer within the meaning of § 1.403(b)–2(b)(8) in the adopting eligible employer’s controlled group. The controlled group consists of the adopting eligible employer and each other employer that is aggregated with the adopting eligible employer under § 414(b), (c), (m) or (o), including § 1.414(c)–5. Thus, if there is more than one eligible employer

may have been based in part on a perception that the adoption of a prototype plan effectively prohibits the inclusion of additional features in the investment arrangements under the plan, or the availability of different features in different investment arrangements under the plan, and that the Service would not approve plans that allow adopting employers to provide that the availability of certain features may depend on the participant’s choice of investment arrangement. In revising the sample plan language, the Service has clarified that, subject to the provisions of sections 8.04 and 8.05, such options are available to drafters of pre-approved plans.

(18) A provision in the draft revenue procedure would have allowed a prototype sponsor to correct certain typographical errors and incorrect cross-references in an approved § 403(b) prototype plan without adversely affecting adopting employers’ reliance on the opinion letter if the correction would not change the original intended meaning. As explained in section 3.04(1)(d) of Rev. Proc. 2011–49, the ability to correct errors in this manner is no longer available for pre-approved qualified plans and will not be available for pre-approved 403(b) plans.