The 401K plan is a savings account offered by many employers to their employees. It is an account set up to help save for retirment. There are certain restrictions and rules that must be followed for the account to be considered a 401K savings plan. The government sets up the basic standard rules for these savings accounts. Then, each employer can also set up certain rules or restrictions based on how they want to run the 401K plan for their employees. As long as the employer does not break any of the government rules about a 401K account, then the rules they set on the account are allowed.
The best answers about a 401K plan would be found by asking the employer who is managing the account. Like I mentioned, there are federal rules, but there are also rules by each company, so just because employer A has certain features on a 401K account, it does not mean that employer B will offer those same features on their company's 401K plan.
Each plan is set up differently, however there are federal rules that spell out the qualifications of a 401k tax deferred plan.
Hit wikipedia.
Why ? it is of no use to us in the UK or any other English speaking country which this site covers.
Should they have a UK site about our taxes ?
There are AMPLE websites already existing that provide such information.
