Many employers are unaware that, in certain circumstances, they may be eligible for a valuable tax credit in connection with their establishment of a retirement plan. Although this particular tax credit has been available for over a decade, it is still surprising to see the general lack of awareness that most plan sponsors have regarding this tax saving opportunity. As a result, this article is intended to familiarize readers with this tax credit so that they can attempt to evaluate its application to their (or their client’s) tax situation.

In 2018, we wrote about the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (“Budget Act”) and the unanticipated inclusion of certain provisions of the Budget Act that generally expanded the availability of hardship withdrawals from retirement plans. Since the publication of that article, the U.S. Treasury Department has released proposed regulations that begin to provide the guidance that practitioners and plan sponsors require in order to implement the changes to the hardship withdrawal rules (“Proposed Regulations”). Final regulations on this matter are anticipated sometime later in 2019. However, since several provisions of the Budget Act were slated to be effective as early as January 1, 2019, it is important to understand the content of the Proposed Regulations now in order to be poised to take advantage of them once they are finalized. Therefore, the following generally discusses the content and impact of the Proposed Regulations.

Over the course of the last two years, we at Legacy Retirement Solutions, LLC (“Legacy”) have diligently worked to help our clients satisfy the most recent Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) mandated restatement of pre-approved defined contribution retirement plans. This requirement was commonly referred to as the “Pension Protection Act” (“PPA”) restatement requirement in honor of the piece of retirement plan related legislation that most significantly influenced the content of the restated plan documents.