Читать книгу Auditing Employee Benefit Plans - Josie Hammond - Страница 65

Timeliness of remittance of participant contributions remains an enforcement initiative of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). The DOL has established a Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program to help plan sponsors voluntarily correct ERISA violations, such as delinquent contributions. Visit https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource- center/faqs/vfcp.pdf for further information.

Participant contributions are considered plan assets on the earliest date they can be reasonably segregated from the employer’s general assets (the general rule), but in no event later than (1) the 15th business day following the end of the month in which amounts are withheld from, or paid by, employees (the maximum period) for a pension plan or (2) 90 days after contributions are withheld from or paid by employees (the maximum period) for a welfare benefit plan. The maximum periods prescribed do not represent safe harbors to the general rule that participant contributions should be remitted as soon as they can be segregated. Untimely remittance or failure to remit participant contributions constitutes a prohibited transaction under ERISA, requiring additional reporting and disclosure. The IRS is also pursuing this matter. The timely deposit of participant contributions is item number 8 on their top 10 list of 401(k) plan audit issues.

On January 14, 2010, the DOL finalized a rule to protect employee contributions deposited to small pension and welfare benefit plans with fewer than 100 participants, by providing a safe harbor period of 7 business days to make the deposit of such funds to the plan following withholding from employees. This rule provided greater clarity to employers as to when contributions are to be remitted to the plan, as compared to the general rule that assets should be remitted as soon as they can be segregated. This rule does not apply to larger plans (plans with greater than 100 participants), due to the cost of analysis and lack of information or sufficient information to evaluate the effect on the larger plan. However, at the same time that the DOL finalized this rule, they revised the example for large companies to illustrate deposits made within not less than three business days from the payroll date. This is in contrast to the old example, which illustrated deposits made within the first few days of the following month for large complex payroll systems.

Help desk. The EBSA provides technical guidance on the application of ERISA through Field Assistance Bulletins (FABs), which are posted to the EBSA’s website at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa under Technical Guidance. FAB 2008-01 addresses the responsibilities of fiduciaries and trustees of ERISA-covered plans for collection of delinquent contributions.