401k loan with my employer has defaulted and deemed. Will I be liable for taxes on a new distribution from this same 401k to pay off the deemed loan?

[Opus 17]

You want to take a cash distribution that you will send back to the same plan trustee to repay the loan?  That's what a deemed distribution is.  It already happened.  It is considered for tax and accounting purposes that you withdrew cash and paid the balance.  You will get a 1099-R for the distribution and it's taxable (with penalty).  I think you will find if you call the trustee that there is no more loan to pay back because it is already paid back.   If you take a second distribution, you won't have anywhere to put it, and you will need to roll it over into a private IRA within 60 days or else it becomes another taxable distribution.

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

A deemed distribution (code L) does not satisfy the loan, it only makes it taxable.  When you pay off the loan, the payments made to pay off the loan after a deemed distribution become after-tax basis in the plan so the money is not taxed again when later distributed.

If this happened after you left service with the employer providing the plan, the loan should be satisfied with an offset distribution (code M) which does satisfy the loan.  You have until the due date of your tax return for the year in which the offset distribution occurred, including extensions, to come up with the money to roll a code-M distribution over to another qualified retirement account like a traditional IRA to penalty and continue to defer taxes on the offset distribution.