Employee Plans Compliance Resolutions System

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On February 7, 2024, the IRS announced the second phase of its Pre-Examination Retirement Compliance Program (we discussed phase one in our earlier post here).  Under this program, sponsors will be notified that their plan is selected for examination and will have 90 days to review and correct any plan document or operational errors…

The IRS recently issued Notice 2023-43 providing new interim guidance for self-correction of plan errors. This guidance applies to corrections made prior to the anticipated issuance of revisions to the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”). Under this guidance, provided certain conditions are satisfied, most Eligible Inadvertent Failures (defined below) may be self-corrected, though there are specific types of failures that may not be self-corrected at this time (discussed below).

As part of our ongoing series on SECURE 2.0, this post discusses three significant changes to corrections of common retirement plan errors: (1) New rules for correcting overpayments, (2) expansion of the Self-Correction Program under the IRS’s Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”) to cover most inadvertent errors, and (3) making permanent the current…

Ever wished you could predict the future? Or at the very least, predict the timing of a retirement plan audit? Well, you may be in luck on your second wish.

Last Friday, the IRS Employee Plans division announced a new pilot program whereby it will notify retirement plan sponsors 90 days in advance that their…

The IRS recently updated its “Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System” (EPCRS).  By way of background, EPCRS is a correction program administered by the IRS for plan sponsors to correct certain retirement plan errors.  EPCRS is comprised of three different components: the Self-Correction Program, the Voluntary Correction Program, and the Audit Closing Agreement Program.

The updated…

On September 29, 2016, the IRS released new guidelines under its Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS).  EPCRS consists of three programs by which plan sponsors can correct plan documentation or operational errors – the Self-Correction Program, the Voluntary Correction Program and the Audit Closing Agreement Program.   Rev. Proc. 2016-51 supersedes the older guidelines (Rev.…

Less than a week after issuing significant modifications to the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) (as described in our March 31, 2015 blog), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) further modified EPCRS through the release of Revenue Procedure 2015-28.  The new guidance provides welcome relief (provided certain requirements are met) from the current standard (or safe harbor) EPCRS correction method for elective deferral failures, which has been widely viewed as providing affected participants with a windfall.  Also, in an effort to facilitate the adoption of automatic contribution arrangements and prompt correction of failures, the IRS has established favorable safe harbor correction methods for elective deferral failures.

On March 27, 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Revenue Procedure 2015-27, which modifies, effective July 1, 2015, prior guidelines under the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS).  The IRS established EPCRS so that plan sponsors could correct documentary and operational errors without jeopardizing a plan’s tax qualified status.  EPCRS consists of three programs under which plan sponsors can correct plan errors – the Self-Correction Program, the Voluntary Correction Program and the Audit Closing Agreement Program.   The new guidance modifies, but does not supersede, the most recent restatement of EPCRS set forth in Revenue Procedure 2013-12.

What happens if a tax-exempt organization becomes ineligible to sponsor a Section 403(b) Plan because it loses its exempt status under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3)?  As an example, loss of tax-exempt status may occur automatically if the organization fails to file an annual Form 990 information return for three consecutive years.  It may also lose its exempt status if the IRS revokes or terminates exempt status for other reasons.

Final Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) regulations, which became effective January 1, 2009, require that plan sponsors adopt written 403(b) Plan documents.  A 403(b) Plan is a form of defined contribution retirement plan that may only be offered by employers that are tax-exempt entities under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or that are…