Employers that sponsor participant-directed individual account plans like 401(k)s and 403(b)s need to prepare for the annual disclosure requirement imposed on plan administrators under section 404 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. (See our earlier posts and article regarding the regulations that became effective last year.) 

Separate regulations required service providers to give plan administrators, by July 1, 2012, the detailed information plan administrators needed to comply with the initial participant disclosure requirement.   The deadline for that initial participant disclosure was August 30, 2012. Unless the employer reissued the information required for the participant annual disclosure subsequent to the first disclosure (in order to align the annual disclosure deadline date with the date on which other plan-wide disclosures are made, for example), the annual disclosure will need to be made by August 30, 2013. (It will need to be made earlier if the employer complied earlier than was required last year.) 

While third party administrators might prepare (and even distribute) these disclosures on behalf of plan administrators, the employer sponsoring the plan generally must ensure that it complies with the regulations. This is because the employer normally is the plan administrator and the applicable regulations impose this disclosure duty on plan administrators. Since service providers are required to give the detailed information needed for the plan administrator to make the annual disclosure to participants, employers should request the required information from the service providers now to ensure that the August 30th (or earlier) deadline is met.            

Finally, there is some “buzz” in the retirement plan community that the Department of Labor might adjust the timing rule described above to assist plan sponsors in aligning the date for distributing these disclosures with other plan-wide disclosures.  (At least three large associations of benefits professionals have asked the DOL to do so.)  We are following these developments and will post information about substantive future DOL guidance regarding these disclosures on this blog.

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Photo of Monique Warren Monique Warren

Monique Warren is a Principal in the White Plains, New York office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Ms. Warren is a member of the Employee Benefits Counseling, Executive Compensation, Benefits Litigation and Workplace Privacy Practice Group.

Ms. Warren counsels employers on employee benefits compliance…

Monique Warren is a Principal in the White Plains, New York office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Ms. Warren is a member of the Employee Benefits Counseling, Executive Compensation, Benefits Litigation and Workplace Privacy Practice Group.

Ms. Warren counsels employers on employee benefits compliance and administrative matters, drafts plan documents and employee communication materials, and represents employers to government agencies and in employee benefit litigation. Her expertise includes health and welfare plans as well as retirement plans.

Ms. Warren has spoken at numerous client and professional association events including SHRM and WEB meetings. She also has presented numerous seminars on employee benefits compliance topics including benefits basics for human resource professionals, HIPAA privacy and security, 409A requirements, and annual legal updates.

Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Ms. Warren was a member of the employee benefits group of a large Chicago law firm and later maintained her own practice in Illinois, representing employers in employee benefits, employment and employment-related immigration matters. While attending law school, she was an intern in the tax clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and was a judicial extern for the Honorable Blanche Manning, Federal District Court, Northern District of Illinois. As a law student, she received academic honors and was a member of the moot court employment law team.

During the ten years prior to attending law school, Ms. Warren directed human resource functions in manufacturing and research enterprises. She was certified as a Senior Human Resource Professional by SHRM in 1996.