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Ten Mandatory SECURE 2.0 Changes for 401(k) Plans

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, as enacted on December 29, 2022, contains over 90 provisions affecting retirement plans and IRAs, but of the many provisions only a handful are required changes for 401(k) plans.  This post lists those changes and indicates when the provisions go into effect.  Unless otherwise noted, 401(k) plans (and 403(b) plans, to which these changes also apply) will need to be amended to reflect mandatory SECURE 2.0 changes by the end of their 2025 plan year, unless that deadline is later extended.  Note that some of the changes listed below, such as the paper disclosure requirement, may not require a plan amendment.  Also as noted, two are required changes only if discretionary provisions are first adopted.

One.  Increases In Required Minimum Distribution Age

Effective for required minimum distributions (RMDs) after December 31, 2022 for individuals who attain age 72 after that date, the RMD increases from 72 to 73 for those born between 1951 and 1959, and age 75 for those born in 1960 and subsequent.  A technical glitch needs to be corrected, as the law currently puts those born in 1959 into the age 73 and age 75 distribution categories. 

Two. Removal of RMD Requirement for In-Plan Roth Accounts

RMDs during your lifetime are not required for Roth IRAs, but were required under prior law, to be taken from from in-plan Roth accounts.  SECURE 2.0 eliminates the requirement to take lifetime RMDs from in-plan Roth accounts effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2023. 

Three.  Roth Catch-Up Contributions for High Earners

Effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2023, age 50 catch-up contributions under 401(k) plans made by participants whose wages in the prior year exceeded $145,000 must be made in the form of designated Roth contributions.  The $145,000 amount is indexed after 2024.  Catch-up contributions for lower wage earners can continue to be made on a pre-tax basis but must be permitted to be made in the form of designated Roth contributions.  Another technical glitch in the law needs to be corrected, in order to make catch-up contributions permissible at all, beginning in 2024.  Plans that don’t include designated Roth contributions must be amended to do so by the applicable deadline, in order to accommodate the Roth catch-up feature.

Four:  Increased Catch-Up Limit Between Ages 60-63

Effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024, the age 50 catch-up limit is increased for participants between the ages of 60 and 63 to the greater of (a) $10,000 or (b) 150% of the 2024 “normal” catch-contribution limit.  150% of the 2023 catch-up contribution limit already exceeds $10,000 ($11,250).  The $10,000 limit will be adjusted for cost-of-living after 2025.

Five.  Coverage of Long-Term, Part-Time Workers

This one is a double whammy because SECURE 1.0, enacted in 2019, requires coverage of long-term, part-time employees for 401(k) plans in 2024, and SECURE 2.0 expanded this rule to ERISA 403(b) plans, in addition to reducing the number of years required to qualify as a long-term part-time employee.   Specifically, beginning in 2025 401(k) and ERISA 403(b) plans must allow employees who complete 500 or more hours of service in two consecutive years to make elective deferrals (but need not make employer contributions on their behalf), taking into account service worked in 2023 and subsequent.  Under SECURE 1.0, 401(k) plans must allow employees who worked 500 or more hours in three consecutive years, beginning in 2021, to make elective deferrals commencing in 2024.  These employees need not be taken into account for nondiscrimination and coverage purposes or for top-heavy purposes.

An example illustrates how this works.  An employee who works at least 500 hours of service in 2021, 2022, and 2023 would be eligible to make elective deferrals in their employer’s 401(k) plan on January 1, 2024, per SECURE 1.0.  But if that same employee were employed by an employer with an ERISA 403(b) plan, the employee would have to work 500 or more hours in both 2023 and 2024, in order to be eligible to make elective deferrals in 2025 under SECURE 2.0  Note that this would be the case even if the employee were a student employee or were hired into a position requiring less than 20 hours per week (categories that were exceptions to the universal availability rule applicable to 403(b) plans).  Service for plan years before January 1, 2023 is disregarded for purposes of SECURE 2.0 eligibility, but service worked since 2021 is counted for vesting purposes under both SECURE Acts. 

Six. Auto-Enrollment and Auto-Escalation for Newly Adopted Plans

Effective for single-employer 401(k) or 403(b) plans adopted on or after December 29, 2022 SECURE 2.0 requires that, starting in 2025, the plan auto-enroll participants, and auto-escalate deferrals.  This rule also applies to employers that adopt multiple employer plans on or after December 29, 2022.  Certain exemptions apply, including employers with 10 or fewer employees, businesses in the first three years of existence, governmental and church pans, and SIMPLE 401(k) plans.  For plans subject to the rule, the automatic enrollment percentage must start at 3% and increase at least 1% on the first day of each successive plan year until the deferral rate reaches at least 10%, but not more than 15%.  For plan years beginning before 2025, non-safe harbor plans may not exceed 10%.  Participants must be permitted to withdraw deferrals, and earnings, within 90 days, without application of the 10% early withdrawal penalty tax.  Qualified default investment alternatives must be used for the automatically contributed amounts, subject to modification by participants.  

Seven.  Repayment Deadline for Qualified Birth or Adoption Distributions (If Offered)

This is a mandatory change to a discretionary provision from SECURE 1.0.  SECURE 1.0 introduced the option of allowing participants to take qualified birth or adoption distributions (QBADs), which are distributions from a 401(k) or 403(b) plan (or IRA) of up to $5,000 per parent that are not subject to the early withdrawal penalty tax and that are taken within one year of the date of a birth or finalization of adoption proceedings.  SECURE 1.0 provided that these amounts may be repaid back to the qualified plan or IRA notwithstanding normal contribution dollar limits, but did not specify a deadline for repayment.  For plan sponsors that did add QBADs to their plans, and for IRA custodians that made them available, SECURE 2.0 now requires that repayment be made within three years.  The repayment period ends December 31, 2025 for QBADs that are currently outstanding.

Eight.  Surviving Spouse Election to be Treated as Employee

Surviving spouses have several special options with regard to a spouse’s retirement accounts, that are not available to non-spouse beneficiaries.  Effective for 2024, SECURE 2.0 adds one more option:  the surviving spouse of the account holder who is the designated beneficiary of the account can irrevocably elect to be treated for RMD purposes as the deceased account holder of the retirement account him or herself.  As a consequence, RMDs will be paid no sooner than when the account holder would have reached his or her required beginning date, and will be paid out according to the account holder’s life expectancy, rather than the spouse’s life expectancy, using the Uniform Life Table rather than the Single Lifetime Table.  Note that this option is different from the surviving spouse electing to treat the account as his or her own, which would also result in use of the Uniform Life Table, but using the spouse’s birthdate.  This new option under SECURE 2.0 would primarily be of interest to an older surviving spouse, as it would permit use of the younger account holder’s life expectancy for RMD purposes. 

Nine.  Required Annual Paper Account Statement

Under a Department of Labor “safe harbor” set forth in final Department of Labor regulations published in 2020, retirement plan sponsors may deliver plan disclosures such as Summary Plan Descriptions, quarterly or annual account statements, and other items, by electronic means, either through email or posting on a company website.  EforERISA posted about the electronic disclosure safe harbor back in 2020.  Effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2025, SECURE 2.0 requires that defined contribution plans, which include 401(k) and 403(b) plans, provide a paper benefit statement at least once per year.  The other three required quarterly statements may be delivered electronically provided the safe harbor delivery requirements are met.  Participants are permitted to opt-out of paper delivery.   SECURE 2.0 also instructs DOL to revise the electronic delivery regulations by December 31, 2024, to require a one-time initial paper notice to new participants that informs them of their right to receive all required disclosures on paper.  This initial written disclosure would be required to be delivered prior to issuance of any electronic communications about the plan.

Ten.  Annual “Reminder” Notice for Unenrolled Participants (Sec. 320)

This is a required provision for employers who opt to use simplified disclosure procedures for employees who are eligible under their plan, but do not actively participate. This is a discretionary provision under SECURE 2.0 and it is unclear how many employers will adopt it, due to the administrative challenges of segregating the two employee populations for different notice purposes. Currently required ERISA disclosures must be made to employees who have met eligibility requirements under a retirement plan, but do not actively participate, equally to those who are actively participating in a retirement plan. Effective immediately, a plan sponsor may carve unenrolled participants out of normal notification procedures, provided that they supply an annual notice of the employees’ eligibility to participate in the plan, and any applicable election deadlines. Other prerequisites to this simplified annual notice procedure are that (a) the employee is provided any notification they expressly request be supplied; and (b) the employee received a Summary Plan Description and all other required notices upon initially becoming eligible to participate in the plan.

If you are a 401(k) or 403(b) plan sponsor, or advise plan sponsors, and have questions about these required changes under SECURE 2.0, use the Contact form at EforERISA to get more information on next steps.

The above information is a brief summary of legal developments that is provided for general guidance only and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the author and the reader. Readers are encouraged to seek individualized legal advice in regard to any particular factual situation. © 2023 Christine P. Roberts, all rights reserved.

Photo credit: Ross Findon, Unsplash

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Five SECURE 2.0 Changes Impacting Non-Profit Employers

On December 29, 2022 President Biden signed into law H.R. 2617, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that will keep the federal government funded for the 2023 fiscal year.  Of the many provisions in the massive bill, Division T, the SECURE Act of 2022, contains close to 400 pages of far-reaching changes affecting retirement plans and IRAs.  Commonly referred to as SECURE 2.0, it builds upon and adds to retirement plan provisions of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (SECURE 1.0) which was passed in 2019, but is more extensive than the earlier law.  This post focuses on five provisions of SECURE 2.0 that specifically impact retirement plans maintained by non-profit employers. In addition to the changes listed below, which affect plans currently in existence, beginning in 2025 newly adopted Section 403(b) plans will be required to auto-enroll participants, with some exceptions.

One: Expansion of Multiple Employer Plan and Pooled Employer Plan Arrangements to Section 403(b) Plans

Effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2022,  Section 403(b) plan sponsors can participate in multiple employer plan arrangements (MEPs) and pooled employer plan arrangements (PEPs), potentially achieving economies of scale under such arrangements (in terms of recordkeeping and investment expenses) that have previously only been available to for-profit employers.  MEPs and PEPs organized for Section 403(b) plan sponsors will be able to take advantage of relief, extended under SECURE 1.0,  from the “one bad apple” rule so that violation of one employer member of a multiple employer or pooled arrangement does not affect the tax treatment of other, compliant employer members. 

Two: Section 403(b) Plans May Invest in Collective Investment Trusts (CITs)

Since 1974, the only two permitted investment vehicles for 403(b) plans were annuity contracts and mutual funds.  Effective as of its date of enactment, SECURE 2.0 adds a third option, collective investment trusts (CITs), to that short list.  CITs are pooled investment arrangements that are made available only to qualified retirement plans, and that share some features with mutual funds but have different regulatory oversight and may offer some cost efficiencies.  Despite the immediate effective date, there will be some lead time before CITs are available to Section 403(b) plan sponsors due to the need to modify applicable securities laws.

Three: Expanded Investment Sources for Section 403(b) Hardship Withdrawals

Prior to SECURE 2.0, hardship withdrawals from Section 403(b) plans could be drawn only from employee contributions, less earnings.  Effective for plan years after December 31, 2023, SECURE 2.0 will bring Section 403(b) plans into conformity with Section 401(k) plans in this regard, so that QNECs, QMACs , in addition to elective deferrals, and earnings on these amounts, are permitted sources for hardship withdrawals.   SECURE 2.0 also permits hardship withdrawals to be made on the basis of a written certification by the participant as to the need for the withdrawal rather than on the basis of more formal documentation.

Four: Extension to Amend Section 457(b) Plans for SECURE 1.0 Required Minimum Distribution Rules

As we posted recently, December 31, 2022 was the deadline for sponsors of non-governmental Section 457(b) deferred compensation plans to amend their plan documents to incorporate changes to required minimum distribution rules under SECURE 1.0.  For tax-exempt sponsors of these plans who did not act timely, SECURE 2.0 has extended the amendment deadline under SECURE 1.0 to conform to the amendment deadline under applicable provisions of SECURE 2.0.  The new deadline is the last day of the first plan year beginning on or after January 1, 2025 (2027 in the case of governmental plans).  Note in this regard that SECURE 2.0 further modifies RMD rules, including increasing the RMD starting age in stages, first from 72 to 73, then eventually to 75, so additional amendments to RMD provisions will eventually be needed under SECURE 2.0.  Plans must operate in accordance with required provisions, in the interim.

Five: Eligibility for Long-Term, Part-Time Employees

This is a provision of SECURE 2.0 that is not unique to 403(b) plans but applies equally to 401(k) plans.  The original SECURE 1.0 rule required long-term, part-time employees, defined as employees who have worked 500 or more hours of service in three consecutive twelve-month periods, to be able to participate in the deferral-only portion of a 401(k) plan beginning in 2024.  Effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2024, SECURE 2.0 expands this rule to 403(b) plans that are subject to ERISA and reduces the three consecutive twelve-month requirement to two consecutive periods.  This will be a significant adjustment to 403(b) plan sponsors who are accustomed to the universal availability rule, one exception to which permitted employees who normally work less than 20 hours per week, and who fail to accumulate 1,000 hours of service in an eligibility measurement period, to be excluded from making elective deferrals.  Although universal availability does not apply under 401(k) plans, the 1,000 hour rule operated in a similar way and will now yield to the 500 hour in two consecutive year standard.

SECURE 2.0 will be a topic of discussion at EforERISA in many posts to come.  If you have not subscribed to this blog yet, please take a moment to do so by typing your email address under the prompt at “Continue Reading More Articles.”  And if you are a plan sponsor, or advise plan sponsors, and have questions about provisions of the law or steps to take to get ready for their implementation, don’t hesitate to reach out using the Contact form (under “Posts Worth Revisiting”).

The above information is a brief summary of legal developments that is provided for general guidance only and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the author and the reader. Readers are encouraged to seek individualized legal advice in regard to any particular factual situation. © 2023 Christine P. Roberts, all rights reserved.

Photo credit: Ståle Grut, Unsplash

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Year End SECURE Act Deadline Looms for Tax-Exempt 457(b) Plans

Despite an extension granted to qualified plans, Section 403(b) plans, and governmental Section 457(b) plans to make necessary amendments under the SECURE Act, no extension past December 31, 2022 currently applies for Section 457(b) plans maintained by private tax-exempt organizations.  That means that, absent future guidance from IRS, these plans must be amended by the end of this year to incorporate the SECURE Act’s changes to required minimum distribution provisions.  Prompt action by those responsible for Section 457(b) benefits is required in order to meet the fast-approaching deadline. 

By way of background, Section 457(b) permits private, tax-exempt organizations to offer deferred compensation plans to a “top-hat” group, consisting of a “select group of management or highly compensated employees.”  Such plans are exempt from most provisions of Title I of ERISA and permit covered participants to defer up to the 457(e)(15) annual dollar limit annually ($22,500 in 2023) in addition to whatever they defer under the tax-exempt employer’s Section 403(b) or other retirement plan.  Governmental employers may also sponsor plans under Section 457(b) without limiting participation to a top-hat group.  Section 457(b) plans, whether sponsored by private tax-exempt employers or governmental entities, are subject to the required minimum distribution rules under Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(9).  Those rules require that accounts begin to be distributed to participants by their “required beginning date” or RBD, as defined under Section 401(a)(9)(C), and also govern subsequent distributions to account holders and their beneficiaries.

Enter the SECURE Act in 2019.  The SECURE Act moved the RBD for non-owners out to the later of retirement or April following the year in which a participant reaches age 72, rather than 70 ½, which has been the prior rule, and also required annual required minimum distributions following the death of an account holder to be made over a period not exceeding 10 years for most designated beneficiaries, rather than over a period covering their life expectancy, which had been the case previously.  This is a mandatory change under the SECURE Act; the Act also contains discretionary provisions such as qualified birth and adoption withdrawals. 

The original deadline to amend non-governmental plans under the SECURE Act was the last day of the first plan year beginning on or after January 1, 2022 (December 31, 2022 for a calendar plan year).   Governmental employers and multiemployer plans had until the end of 2024, however, as did 403(b) plans maintained by public schools.   In recent months, the IRS extended the SECURE Act amendment deadlines for all types of plans other than Section 457(b) plans maintained by tax-exempt employers.  This was announced in Notice 2022-33, issued in September 2022, whic was followed up by guidance in October of 2022 (Notice 2022-45) that extended the deadline to adopt amendments under applicable provisions of other laws (the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 (Miners Act) and the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (Relief Act)).  (More precisely, the deadline extended under Notice 2022-33 included amendments under the CARES Act related to the 2020 waiver of RMDs and Notice 2022-45 covered amendments under other applicable provisions of the CARES Act.)

December 31, 2025 is the new amendment deadline under applicable provisions of SECURE and these other laws for qualified retirement plans, including 401(k) plans, and 403(b) plans.  For governmental pension plans and governmental Section 457(b) plans it is generally 90 days after the close of the third regular legislative session of the legislative body with the authority to amend the plan that begins after December 31, 2023. 

In the absence of further guidance from IRS, December 31, 2022 remains the deadline to amend Section 457(b) plans maintained by private tax-exempt employers to conform to the RMD provisions of the SECURE Act.  It is not unheard of for IRS to issue late-in-the-year deadline extensions, but in this instance, it has been silent on this category of plan twice in close succession.  Employers who maintain such plans should connect with their third-party administrators or benefit attorneys to arrange for timely adoption of the necessary amendment to their plan document, and an update of plan summary information provided to participants.

The above information is a brief summary of legal developments that is provided for general guidance only and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the author and the reader. Readers are encouraged to seek individualized legal advice in regard to any particular factual situation. © 2022 Christine P. Roberts, all rights reserved.

Photo credit: Markus Winkler, Unsplash

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Summertime Blues for Your 401(k) Plan, P.2: Eligibility Failures

This is the second installment of several posts covering the most common 401(k) plan operational issues that arise during Form 5500 prep season for calendar year plans, which happens to be summertime: the season of outdoors fun and enjoyment for folks outside the ERISA bubble. This time around we will focus on a few selected errors related to eligibility under the plan – who gets to participate in the plan, and when. (More information on fixing eligibility errors in a 401(k) plan, courtesy of the IRS, is found here.) Note that the following discussion relates to plans in which participants must affirmatively enroll; a separate post will cover operational errors arising from auto-enrollment features.

Error No. 2: Eligibility Failures

Eligibility speaks to who gets to participate in a 401(k) plan, and entry dates signal when their participation must begin. These related areas can result in a host of plan errors.

The two main criteria of plan eligibility are age and service, and a minimum age of 21 and one Year of Service (defined below) are common eligibility criteria, especially for receiving employer contributions. The minimum service requirements to make salary deferrals are commonly reduced to, say, three months of service or even a shorter period. Also, commonly, plans exclude employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and employees earning no U.S.-source income. These criteria are all fairly straightforward, but complications sometimes arise when plans exclude employees based on schedule or job category, such as part-time employees, temporary employees, and per diem employees. Applicable law requires that employees in these categories be allowed to participate once they have worked 1,000 hours in a 12-consecutive month period (“Year of Service”). This requirement is part of preapproved plan documentation (adoption agreement), but plan sponsors not infrequently fail to adhere to it in actual fact. So, it is not uncommon to find that a plan has been excluding employees classified as per diem, or part-time, even after they have attained 1,000 hours in a given plan year.

The correction for this error is generally to put the improperly excluded participant in the position they would have been in had the error not occurred, by making qualified nonelective contributions (QNECs), plus earnings, to replace the salary deferrals and matching contributions that they failed to receive while improperly excluded from the plan. Generally plan sponsors only need to replace 50% of the missed elective deferrals (lost opportunity cost), but in some cases when the error is caught and corrected quickly and a disclosure is made to affected participants, the lost opportunity cost is reduced to 25% of the missed elective deferral (period of failure exceeds three months, but is less than two years), or even 0% (period of failure is less than three months). 100% of the missed matching contribution or nonelective contribution needs to be replace, plus earnings.

Note that under the SECURE Act, Section 401(k) plans (other than collectively bargained plans) must cover “long-term, part-time employees” who work at least 500 but less than 999 hours in each of the last three consecutive years. Employers must start counting hours of service towards this standard in 2021, such that the first coverage of long-term, part-time employees will occur in 2024. Proposed legislation would reduce the three year measurement period to two years. A plan sponsor can be more generous than the minimum requirement and allow entry into their plan sooner than the SECURE Act deadline.

Entry dates add another area of potential error. Entry dates may be semi-annual (e.g., January 1 and July 1, for a calendar year plan) or more frequent, such as quarterly (January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1), or even monthly. Errors often occur when plans are amended to adopt a more frequent entry date schedule, but plan operation lags behind and continues to follow the old entry date schedule. Errors also arise because of the time period for counting the 1,000 hours (the initial eligibility computation period) is often misunderstood and thus misapplied. In most plans, but not always – check your Adoption Agreement! – the 1,000 hours are counted from the date of hire to the first anniversary of hire, and then the counting period switches to the plan year (in these examples, the calendar year). Sometimes plan sponsors keep using the anniversary date cycle and therefore don’t catch the correct point at which 1,000 hours is attained, and thus miss the correct entry date.

Other eligibility errors arise from permitting employees to participate before they have met eligibility criteria. Sometimes these errors can be corrected with a retroactive amendment permitting early participation by the otherwise eligible employee. However this might not be the correct approach if, for instance, most of the affected participants are highly compensated employees. In that scenario, return of contributions plus earnings may be appropriate.

Correction of eligibility errors is relatively straightforward, as noted. The real goal, however, is to avoid these operational errors in the first place. I’ll come back to my favorite recommendation to avoid unneeded plan interpretation mishaps – design your plan as simply as possible. Of course, “simplicity” will depend upon the sector your business is in and the rate of employee turnover you experience. Immediate eligibility may be simple to administer for a small shop of engineering professionals, but a six-month or longer eligibility period may make sense for a restaurant or other business that experiences high turnover. If immediate eligibility works for your business, keep in mind that there are other ways to incentivize employees to stay with you long term, for instance by way of a vesting schedule imposed on employer contributions.

In addition to a simple plan design, I also recommend the all-hands meeting among human resource and payroll personnel, whether in-house or outsourced, at which every attendee has a copy of the plan adoption agreement, and a description of employment categories such as full-time, part-time, temporary, per diem, etc. It may also be helpful to have a representative of the plan recordkeeper at the meeting. At this meeting, the key sections of the plan document are those on eligibility, hours of service, and entry dates. The attendees should review the age and service criteria for eligibility, the method of crediting hours of service (whether actual hours or elapsed time.), any exclusion categories, whether any exclusion categories are subject to the 1,000 hour exception, and how the eligibility computation period works. Walking through hypothetical new hires and whether and when they enter the plan is one way to make sure everyone is on the same page and to reduce the chances for misinterpretation of the plan documents. After the meeting, drinks with umbrellas in them may be in order!

Photo credit: A.J. Garcia, Unsplash

The above information is a brief summary of legal developments that is provided for general guidance only and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the author and the reader. Readers are encouraged to seek individualized legal advice in regard to any particular factual situation. © 2021 Christine P. Roberts, all rights reserved.