The IRS has issued a memorandum providing guidance to its Employee Plans (EP) Examinations staff to determine, the amount available for a loan under § 72(p)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), where the participant has received multiple loans during the past year from a qualified plan.
Background
In general, IRC § 72(p)(1) provides that a loan from a plan is a distribution to the participant. IRC § 72(p)(2)(A) excepts a loan that does not exceed the lesser of:
(i) $50,000, reduced by any excess of
(I) the highest outstanding balance of loans during the 1-year period ending on the day before the date on which such loan was made, over
(II) the outstanding balance of loans on the date on which such loan was made; or
(ii) the greater of
(I) half of the present value of the vested accrued benefit, or
(II) $10,000.
Under IRC § 72(p)(2)(A)(i), if the initial loan is less than $50,000, the participant generally may borrow another loan within a year if the aggregate amount does not exceed $50,000. The $50,000 is reduced by the highest outstanding balance of loans during the 1-year period ending the day before the second loan, in turn reduced by the outstanding balance on the date of the second loan.
The guidance to EP examiners is best illustrated by an example: assume a participant borrowed $30,000 in February, which was fully repaid in April, and then borrowed $20,000 in May, which was fully repaid in July, before applying for a third loan in December.
In this example, the IRS instructs its examiners that the Plan can apply the limitations in one of two ways.
In the first approach, the plan may determine that no further loan would be available in December, since $30,000 + $20,000 = $50,000.
Alternatively, the plan may identify “the highest outstanding balance” as $30,000, and permit the third loan in the amount of $20,000 in December.
At this time, IRS EP examiners will accecpt the position that the law does not clearly preclude either computation of the highest outstanding loan balance in the above example.
