Many of you who are familiar with the Form 5500 will remember the Schedule SSA. The Schedule SSA was formerly part of the annual Form 5500, used to notify the Social Security Administration about separated plan participants who retain vested benefits in a pension or retirement plan. Ideally, when a participant retires and applies for Social Security, the Social Security Administration then alerts the individual that she or he might still be owed pension or retirement money from the plan.

When the Department of Labor released the new electronic Form 5500 filing requirements (effective for 2009 and later plan years), one of the changes included the removal of the Schedule SSA (as we knew it) from the Form 5500. Instead, we were alerted that going forward for 2009 and future plan years, information about separated participants with deferred, vested benefits would be reported on a new standalone form to be submitted directly to the IRS, and so, the new Form 8955-SSA was born!