If you sponsor a non-governmental 457(b) tax-exempt plan for your key management and highly compensated employees, perhaps the most significant administrative task occurs at the time participants sever employment.  Each 457(b) plan has a specified time period by which a participant may make an election to defer payment and timely postpone taxation by electing a future distribution date.  If no timely election is made by the end of the specified time period (“default date”), payment will commence within a generally brief period of time after the default date elapses, which may not be what the participant intended. Why must there be a default date? 457(b) tax-exempt plans are non-qualified plans, and in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code, all non-qualified plan assets are taxed at the point the funds are made available to the participant. This is also referred to as “constructive receipt.”  Regardless of whether the funds are actually distributed to the participant, the funds are