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Hardship Distribution Changes – Tax Reform May Have Unintended Consequences

When tax reform proposals were floating around in the fall of 2017, several early proposals to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”) included changes to the hardship distribution rules for qualified retirement plans. However, the final version of the Act did not make any direct changes to hardship distributions.  Nevertheless, the Act, perhaps […]

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KP
Former Associate

Did Hardship Distributions Just Get Easier?

In a previous blog, we addressed an issue of Employee Plans News in which the IRS took the position that 401(k) plan administrators must maintain hardship distribution records and should not rely on electronic participant self-certification for hardship distributions. On February 23, 2017, the IRS issued a memorandum to its Employee Plans Examiners that sets […]

Electronic Self-Certification for Hardship Distributions is Not Sufficient

In its April 1, 2015 Employee Plans News, the IRS stated that defined contribution plan sponsors must maintain hardship distribution records and that plan sponsors cannot rely on electronic participant self-certification for hardship distributions. The IRS indicated that plan sponsors should keep the following: Documentation of the hardship request, review and approval; Financial information that […]

AM