I realize this is a site for IRA questions but I would very much appreciate if someone knowledgeable about qualified retirement plan requirements will respond.

An 80 year-old MD has a self-trusteed, owner-employee (no other employees) Profit Sharing Plan (PSP) at Vanguard. He retired 15 years ago with no self-employment income subsequently and so has not made any further contributions. He has taken annual RMD’s and filed 5500-EZ’s until this became unnecessary for 1997 on for plans with less than $250,000. at year-end.

He would like to keep the PSP for several reasons, including that his beneficiaries can each choose to take their distributions as either a TIRA or RIRA and that his plan includes a survival contingency feature not available on an IRA.

He has just been told by Vanguard that the IRS expects qualified plans to have continuity and permanency or else to be terminated (by rollover to an IRA or by a distribution) if and when a plan is no longer making substantial and recurring contributions. Otherwise, the IRS might disqualify the plan and assess taxes and penalty.

Q. 1: Are the several statements in the preceding paragraph re IRS policy and practice correct and how significant is the risk of such IRS action?

Q. 2: Since there are 4 trustees on the Vanguard PSP, with only 1 trustee’s signature required, would this meet any plan “continuity and permanency” requirement?

Q. 3: If “Yes” is the answer to Q. 2, is that enough to maintain the PSP as a qualified plan even without continuing contributions to it?

Q. 4: Is there another site where qualified plan questions are dealt with?

Thank you for any help you can provide.