Q: When the fee disclosure rules were announced a few years ago, part of the discussion was an increase in spending by the IRS to make sure plans were complying. Is the IRS still focusing on employer sponsored retirement plans?
A: The IRS Employee Plans division (EP) recently announced where they will be concentrating their resources in the employer plans area for fiscal year 2018. The goal is to make sure plan sponsors achieve compliance for their plans, and of course, the participants. Among their compliance efforts they will look closely at plans of companies that are merging or being acquired; plans that have failed to comply with ADP and ACP tests or that didn’t supply required notices to participants; plans that don’t meet age and/or service requirements; forfeiture allocations; and plans that fail to withhold correct elective deferral amounts. The IRS FY 2018 Work Plan also specifies some situations in which EP will use compliance checks to determine if a plan is adhering to certain requirements. Those situations are: plans with partial terminations, plans with non-participant loans, 403(b) plans, 457(b) plans that have excess deferrals, SEP plans with RMD failures, and SIMPLE IRA plans sponsored by more than 100 employees. You can read more here by clicking here.
