Employers and plan sponsors must comply with numerous filing and notice deadlines for their retirement and health and welfare plans. Failure to comply with these deadlines can result in costly penalties and excise taxes. To avoid such penalties and excise taxes, employers must remain informed with respect to the filing and notice deadlines associated with their plans.
The filing and notice deadline table below provides key 2013 filing and notice deadlines common to calendar year plans for the next two months. Please note that the deadlines will be different if your plan year is not the calendar year. Please also note that the table does not include all applicable filing and notice deadlines, just the most common ones. King & Spalding is happy to assist you with any questions you may have regarding compliance with the filing and notice requirements for your employee benefit plans.
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Deadline
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Item
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Action
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Affected Plans
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August 14 (within 45 days after the close of the second quarter of plan year)
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Benefit Statements for Participant-Directed Plans
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Deadline for plan administrator to send benefit statement for the second quarter of the plan year to participants in participant-directed defined contribution plans.
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Defined Contribution Plans with participant-directed investments
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Quarterly Fee Disclosure
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Deadline for plan administrator to disclose fees and administrative expenses deducted from participant accounts during the second quarter of the plan year. Note that the quarterly fee disclosure may be included in the quarterly benefit statement or as a stand-alone document.
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August 15
(the 15th day of the 8th month after the end of the plan year)
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IRS Forms 990 and 990-EZ
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Deadline for tax-exempt trusts associated with qualified retirement plans and voluntary employee beneficiary associations (VEBAs) to file Forms 990 or 990-EZ with the IRS for prior year if the trustee obtained a 3-month extension by filing a Form 8868.
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Qualified Retirement Plans*
Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations
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August 30
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Comparative Chart of Investment Alternatives
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Deadline for plan administrator to furnish a comparative chart of investment alternatives, unless plan administrator takes advantage of a one time delay (of up to 6 months) to align the deadline with the timing of providing other plan enrollment materials.
Plan administrators that provided the 2012 comparative chart before August 30, 2012 have until the 2013 anniversary of that earlier date to provide the 2013 chart.
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Defined Contribution Plans with participant-directed investments
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September 15
(8 ½ months after the end of the plan year)
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Minimum Contribution Deadline
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Deadline for plan administrator to contribute balance of minimum contributions necessary to avoid a funding deficiency.
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Defined Benefit Plans
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September 23
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Updated Business Associate Agreements (BAA)
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Deadline to amend non-grandfathered BAAs to comply with the updated HIPAA compliance rules pursuant to the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Omnibus Final Rule.”
BAAs that were in effect prior to January 25, 2013 and are not renewed or updated between March 26, 2013 and September 23, 2013 receive “grandfathered” status and need not be amended to comply with the new rules until September 22, 2014 (or, if earlier, the date the BAA is renewed or modified on or after September 23, 2013).
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Non-grandfathered BAAs associated with Health & Welfare Plans
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September 30 (within 9 months of the end of the plan year)
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Summary Annual Report (SAR)
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Deadline for plan administrator to distribute Summary Annual Report to prior year to participants and beneficiaries. This deadline may be extended until 2 months following the close of the extension period for filing a Form 5500, if applicable.
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Defined Contribution Plans
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September 30
(last day of the 9th month following the end of the prior plan year)
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Certification of Adjusted Funding Target Attainment Percentage (AFTAP)
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Deadline for actuary to certify AFTAP to avoid presumption that AFTAP is less than 60%.
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Defined Benefit Plans
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*Qualified Retirement Plans include all defined benefit and defined contribution plans that are intended to satisfy Code §401(a).
The contents of this newsletter and any attachments are not intended to be and should not be relied upon as legal advice. In some jurisdictions, this may be considered "Attorney Advertising." If you are not currently on our Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice mailing list under your own name, and you would like to join to receive our monthly Compensation & Benefits Insights publication and to receive notices of future programs and occasional commentaries on new legal developments in the industry, you can make that request by submitting your full contact information to CBI@kslaw.com.
Author, Ryan Gorman, Atlanta, +1 404 572 4609, rgorman@kslaw.com
