The IRS does not care what you do with the money. A hardship distribution is no different that any other distribution. "Hardship" only allows you to take the distribution prior to retirement. The plan determines if it will allow hardship distributions at all. That is the plan rules and has nothing to do with the IRS.
**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**
