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pension plan participant’s right to his or her normal retirement
benefit must become fully vested within specified time limits.
Sec. 411(a); see also 29 U.S.C. sec. 1053(a). When an employee’s
accrued retirement benefit is vested, it is nonforfeitable.
Thus, a participant in a defined benefit plan (such as the Plan)
is fully vested when he or she has a nonforfeitable right to 100
percent of the accrued benefit. An employee’s accrued benefit at
any given time is what a fully vested employee would be entitled
to receive under the plan’s formula if the employee ceased
employment at that time. In order to prevent circumvention of
the vesting provisions, the anticutback rule provides that, in
order to remain qualified, a plan must not decrease an accrued
benefit or reduce a retirement-type subsidy.
The statutory language defining “accrued benefit” for
purposes of the Code supports our conclusion that the NPF COLA is
not an “accrued benefit” as to pre-1991 retirees. Section
411(a)(7) defines “accrued benefit” as “the employee’s accrued
benefit determined under the plan and, except as provided in
subsection (c)(3), [which is not relevant here] expressed in the
form of an annual benefit commencing at normal retirement age”.
(Emphasis added.) Section 411(d)(6), by contrast, protects the
“accrued benefit of a participant” from being “decreased by an
amendment of the plan”. (Emphasis added.) The statutory
construction thus indicates that a retirement benefit may be
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