IRS’s 2024 Required Amendments List is chock-full of changes 

December 18, 2024

IRS’s 2024 Required Amendments List (RA List) in Notice 2024-82 identifies a host of changes in law or guidance affecting qualified and Section 403(b) retirement plans. Sponsors must amend their plans by Dec. 31, 2026, to reflect items on the list that affect their plans. Most of the items on this year's list relate to IRS guidance on optional changes employers might have already adopted pursuant to legislation enacted in recent years.

When a change in tax law or guidance appears on the annual RA List, sponsors of qualified and 403(b) plans affected by the change have until the end of the second calendar year after the year the list is issued to adopt a conforming plan amendment. The same deadline applies to calendar-year and non-calendar-year plans. Accordingly, sponsors of plans affected by changes on the 2024 RA List must amend their plans for these changes by Dec. 31, 2026. This deadline applies to required amendments to individually designed plans as well as interim amendments to preapproved plans.

The RA List doesn’t affect the amendment deadline for discretionary plan-design changes. Sponsors generally must adopt discretionary amendments by the end of the plan year in which the change takes effect (although amendments for certain design changes, such as the addition of a cash or deferred arrangement or an amendment reducing or freezing benefits, must be adopted before the effective date).

Organization of the RA List. Prior to 2024, the RA List was divided into two sections: Part A for changes requiring amendments to most plans, and Part B for changes that IRS believes might affect a few plans due to unusual plan provisions. The 2024 RA List includes a new Part C for changes in law or guidance “that relate to optional plan provisions previously adopted.” Employers that have already adopted any of the optional provisions identified in Part C may need to review those amendments to ensure they appropriately reflect subsequently issued guidance.

Some changes excluded. Not all changes in law or guidance appear on the RA List. The RA List does not include:

• Legislation enacted or guidance issued after the RA List has been prepared
• Changes that can’t reasonably be reflected in plan language without guidance, if IRS expects to issue guidance in the future and include it on a later RA List
• Changes in requirements that permit sponsors to adopt optional plan provisions that don’t cause existing plan provisions to violate law or guidance
• Changes in tax law that don’t cause existing plan provisions to violate law or guidance

Part A of the 2024 RA List is empty. Part B includes two provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (Div. T of Pub. L. No. 117-328) that IRS believes won’t require amendments to most plans: a change in how the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 415 limit applies to certain employees of rural electric cooperatives, and changes to the family attribution rules under IRC Section 414 for purposes of determining controlled and affiliated service groups.

Part C of the 2024 RA List includes some — but not all — of the guidance IRS has issued on certain optional provisions of legislation enacted in recent years. Employers who amended their plans for any of these optional provisions before IRS issued the guidance in Part C may need to amend their plans again to reflect the guidance.

SECURE 1.0. Part C includes several pieces of guidance on provisions of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (Div. O of Pub. L. No. 116-94) (SECURE 1.0):

• Notices 2023-54 and 2024-35 provide relief for missed required minimum distributions (RMDs) that should have been paid under SECURE 1.0’s new 10-year rule for payments to defined contribution plan beneficiaries.
• Notice 2020-68 provides guidance on SECURE 1.0’s qualified birth or adoption distributions.
• Notice 2020-86 provides guidance on the law’s various changes to the 401(k) safe harbor plan rules, including an increase in the deferral cap for qualified automatic contribution arrangements (QACAs).

SECURE 2.0. Part C includes two changes made by SECURE 2.0 to provisions in SECURE 1.0, for which IRS has not issued any separate guidance. One provision limits the repayment period for qualified birth or adoption distributions to three years. The other makes a technical amendment to SECURE 1.0’s changes to the rules on electing 401(k) safe harbor status.

Part C also includes four pieces of guidance on other SECURE 2.0 provisions:

• Notice 2023-54 includes transition relief for payments mischaracterized as RMDs ­— and therefore not treated as eligible rollover distributions due to the increase to age 73 in the RMD triggering age.
• Notice 2024-2 provides guidance on the new option to allow participants to elect Roth treatment on matching and nonelective contributions, relief for certain cash balance plans complying with the backloading rules, changes to rules for savings incentive match plans for employees (SIMPLE) arrangements, and the provision allowing sponsors to offer small financial incentives for plan participation (although IRS acknowledges plan amendments for this change are generally unnecessary).
• Notice 2024-22 provides guidance on anti-abuse rules for a plan’s match on contributions to pension-linked emergency savings accounts.
• Notice 2024-55 addresses the new exception to the 10% early withdrawal penalty for distributions for personal emergencies and domestic abuse.

CARES Act. Part C includes two pieces of guidance related to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (Pub. L. No. 116-136) (CARES Act):

• Notice 2020-50 provides guidance on coronavirus-related distributions.
• Notice 2020-51 provides guidance on the waiver of 2020 RMDs.

Miners Act. Part C includes guidance in Notice 2020-68 on the age reduction for in-service distributions to 59-1/2 under the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 (Div. M of Pub. L. No. 116-94) (Miners Act).

The 2024 RA List doesn’t include all of the changes made by SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 and the CARES and Miners acts. However, before issuing the 2024 RA List, IRS set Dec. 31, 2026, as the deadline for all other required and discretionary amendments related to these laws in Notice 2024-2. The Dec. 31, 2026, deadline also applies to changes made by the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (Div. EE of Pub. L. No. 116-260) (Disaster Relief Act). This means employers have one deadline for ensuring their plans are fully compliant with these laws and the subsequent guidance listed in Part C. (Governmental and collectively bargained plans may have later deadlines, as discussed below.)

For items on the RA List, governmental plans may have later amendment deadlines tied to their legislative calendars if legislative action is necessary to adopt plan amendments (collectively bargained plans don’t receive additional time for items on the RA List). For changes to laws made by SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 and the CARES, Miners and Disaster Relief acts that aren’t on the RA List, the amendment deadline is Dec. 31, 2028, for collectively bargained plans and Dec. 31, 2029, for governmental plans.

• Notice 2024-82 (IRS, Jan. 12, 2024)
• Required amendments list (IRS)
• Amend or update a plan (IRS)

• User’s guide to SECURE 2.0 (regularly updated)
• IRS sets 2025 for final RMD rules, extends 10-year rule relief (April 19, 2024)
• IRS guidance helps DC plan sponsors offer small incentives (March 27, 2024)
• DOL, IRS issue guidance on DC plan emergency savings accounts (March 8, 2024)
• SECURE 2.0 guidance gives more flexibility to cash balance plans (Feb. 7, 2024)
• IRS guidance illuminates SECURE 2.0’s Roth employer contributions (Feb. 2, 2024)
• After empty RA List, IRS delays amendment deadlines for new laws (Dec. 21, 2023)
• SECURE 2.0 spurs DC plan participation with small incentives (Sept. 29, 2023)
• IRS again delays final RMD rule, gives new relief for SECURE acts (July 19, 2023)
• Implementing SECURE 2.0’s Roth provisions may tax sponsors (April 11, 2023)
• IRS issues FAQs on SECURE and Bipartisan American Miners acts (Sept. 22, 2020)
• Offering CARES Act distributions to defined benefit plan participants (July 14, 2020)
• Administering CARES Act’s waiver of 2020 RMDs from DC plans (June 25, 2020)
• Delving into CARES Act relief for retirement plan participants (June 22, 2020)