Over the past year or so, many new regulations, laws and rules have been passed which affect employee benefit plans.  The following is a very brief overview of some items that should have been addressed prior to the end of the year.  If you are a plan sponsor of any of these types of plans, you may wish to consider consulting with your advisors concerning what needs to be done with respect to your particular plans.  This overview only applies to those changes requiring plan amendments. 

If you have any sort of nonqualified plan, subject to the new Code Section 409A, if you wish to allow participants to cancel deferral elections or if you wish to terminate such plans, the plan documents must be amended by December 31, 2005.

If you have any plans with mandatory cash outs, such as qualified defined benefit or defined contribution plans, or Section 403(b) plans, the plans must be amended by the end of the first plan year ending on or after March 28, 2005, to either reduce your mandatory cash outs to $1,000.00 or to require automatic rollovers for all distributions between $1,000.00 and $5,000.00.

If you are electing to amend your plan to eliminate certain contingent benefits, this must be done by December 31, 2005, if you have a calendar plan year.  This applies to all qualified retirement plans, i.e. 401(k) plans, pension plans, money purchase pension plans, and profit sharing plans.

You may now amend your cafeteria or flex plans to allow for the new 2 ½ month grace period to allow reimbursement for health and dependent care costs.  This amendment should be done by the end of the calendar year.

Contact Faye Witt with your employee benefit questions, at 218.529.2428 or fmw@hanftlaw.com.