Kick off the new year by marking your calendar with these key upcoming compliance requirements and deadlines that pertain to single-employer tax-qualified retirement plans.

Do you have a retirement plan compliance checklist? If you think your organization doesn’t need one, think again. Review these common IRS and DOL compliance issues, and conduct a self-audit to help your organization company avoid future costs and liabilities.

No one likes being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or Department of Labor (DOL), but all qualified retirement plans (defined benefit and defined contribution) may be selected for an audit.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” It may not be the mantra of plan sponsors, but this old adage certainly sums up the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) approach to the fiduciary duty of searching for missing plan participants.

In March 2021, the IRS made note of recent rule changes to the responsibilities of retirement plan participants and beneficiaries, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) also reversed course on a final rule that affects fiduciaries’ duties. Understand how recent IRS rule changes may impact plan participants and affect fiduciary duties.

The Department of Labor (DOL) continues to focus on missing participants in retirement plans. In recent years, the DOL, in conjunction with the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), has been auditing retirement plans and reinforcing the actions that plan sponsors must take to locate lost participants and pay the benefits due to them.

A qualified retirement plan account holder may choose to delay — up to a point — paying taxes on retirement savings by keeping them in a qualified retirement plan or IRA. The aforementioned “point” eventually arrives in the form of a required minimum distribution (RMD).