Employee had the required 1,000 hours of service, but terminated prior to entering the plan. Employee was rehired after incurring a break in service. It is my understanding that the employee must "start over" for eligibility purposes. Can anyone confirm this (preferably with a citation)? Also, does the employee retain the year of service for vesting purposes?

It'll probably be up to the plan document. There should be rules for both eligibility and crediting prior vesting.

The rules don't really provide a maximum, just a minimum.

According to the fellows at McKay Hochman, the plan document does not address the situation I described above (which is why I asked the question here). It only addresses rehiring participants. An employee who has not yet entered the plan is not a participant.

You might want to look at this prior
post that discusses the applicable 410(a) regs.

http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=4519

I think that, as a practical matter, you could probably hold out someone in a profit sharing or MPP Plan until they complete another year under these regs, but you couldn't hold out someone in a 401(k) because there would be no way to put them "back in" the Plan retroactively. I haven't looked at this in a while, but I believe the regs cited in the prior post are the place to begin.