Part 2. Plan Documents, Amendments, Mergers, and Terminations

Chapter 1. Plan Amendments, Mergers, and Terminations

Amendment deadlines, the determination-letter program scope, and PBGC figures change frequently — verify current deadlines, the Required Amendments List, the determination-letter procedure, and PBGC premium/termination rules before relying on them.

Citations are to primary authority (Code §§401(a), 411(d)(6), 411(a)(10), 414(l), 4980F, 4980; ERISA §204(h) and Title IV; Treasury regulations; PBGC regulations; and the governing revenue procedures).

Law stated as of October 3, 2026

Chapter 2. Remedial Amendment Periods, the Required Amendments List, and Amendment Deadlines

This chapter covers the document-timing system that replaced periodic IRS review: the §401(b) remedial amendment period and the regulatory concept of a disqualifying provision (and its §403(b) analogue, the form defect), the remedial amendment periods that apply to new plans and to amendments, the annual Required Amendments List and its two-calendar-year deadline, the discretionary amendment deadline, the Operational Compliance List and its stale condition, the statutory amendment deadlines that override the general rules, and what happens when a deadline is missed.

Law stated as of October 3, 2026

Chapter 3. The Determination Letter Program

This chapter covers who may request an IRS determination letter on the form of a retirement plan, when, on what form, and what the letter is worth — the post-2017 contraction of the program, the four surviving categories of eligibility, the filing mechanics (the Form 5300 series, mandatory Pay.gov submission, user fees, notice to interested parties), the scope of IRS review, the reliance a letter confers, and the §7476 declaratory-judgment backstop.

Law stated as of October 3, 2026

Chapter 4. Pre-Approved Plans, Opinion Letters, and the Six-Year Cycles

This chapter covers the pre-approved plan program — the provider/adopting-employer architecture, standardized versus nonstandardized documents, the recurring six-year remedial amendment cycles for defined contribution, defined benefit, and §403(b) plans, the Cumulative List review standard, the opinion letter and the reliance an adopting employer actually gets from it, the employer restatement window, what causes a pre-approved plan to be treated as individually designed, and the interim/discretionary amendment allocation between provider and employer.

Law stated as of October 3, 2026