On April 2, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rolled out major changes to the correction methods related to failure to implement automatic enrollment or to having missed participant-elected deferral changes.

Previously, the prescribed correction in the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) was for the employer to make up 50% of the missed deferrals and 100% of the match, plus earnings on both. This was often a windfall for participants and penalty for sponsors that deterred many from adopting auto-enroll provisions in their plans.

There are now two new safe harbor corrections: one for plans with auto-enroll provisions, another for faulty elective deferrals. The general guideline of the new correction methods are as follows:

For plans with auto-enroll features:
If the failure is found within nine months of the plan year-end in which the auto-enroll should have begun:
o Start the deferral immediately
o Send a notice of the failure to the participant
o 100% of any missed match is made up and adjusted for earnings

If the failure is found outside the nine-month window following the plan year-end, the old procedure remains in place.

For other elective deferral changes that are not completed as requested by the participant, if the failure is found within three months:
Start the deferral immediately
Send a notice of the failure to the participant
100% of any missed match is made up and adjusted for earnings

If found after three months from the date the change was to be effective:
Start the deferral immediately
Send a notice of the failure to the participant
100% of any missed match is made up and adjusted for earnings and the participant must receive a qualified nonelective contribution (QNEC) in the amount of 25% of the missed deferral, plus earnings

For a more detailed explanation on the new regulations, see the recent Client Action Bulletin published by Milliman.