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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 247 / Wednesday, December 29, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Employee Benefits Security Administration 29 CFR Part 2520
RIN 1210AB97

Revision of Annual Information Return/
Reports Employee Benefits Security Administration, Labor.
ACTION: Final forms revisions.
AGENCY:

This document contains final revisions to the instructions for the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan and Form 5500
SF Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan effective for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2021. These final revisions to the instructions were included in a broader proposal of form and instruction changes published on September 15, 2021. The limited number of instruction changes in this document implement annual reporting changes for multiple-employer plans including pooled employer plans that result from statutory provisions in section 101 of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 SECURE
Act. The other changes to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report included in the September 2021 proposal will be the subject of one or more separate and later final notices.
DATES: The final instruction revisions in this document are effective for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2021. The Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report for the 2021 plan year generally is not required to be filed until seven months after the end of the 2021 plan year, e.g., July 2022 for calendar year plans, and a 212-month extension is available.
SUMMARY:

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Janet Song or Florence Novellino, Office of Regulations and Interpretations, Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 202 6938500, this is not a tollfree number.
Customer service information:
Individuals interested in obtaining information from the DOL concerning Title I of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ERISA may call the EBSA Toll-Free Hotline at 1866
444EBSA 3272 or visit the DOLs website www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

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I. Background Titles I and IV of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code Code, generally require pension and other employee benefit plans to file annual returns/reports concerning, among other things, the financial condition and operations of the plans.
Filing a Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report of Employee Benefit Plan Form 5500 or, if eligible, a Form 5500SF
Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan Form 5500SF, together with any required schedules and attachments together the Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report,1 in accordance with their instructions, generally satisfies these annual reporting requirements. ERISA
section 103 broadly sets out annual financial reporting requirements for employee benefit plans under Title I of ERISA. The Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report for Title I purposes is promulgated pursuant to DOL
regulations under the ERISA provisions authorizing limited exemptions and simplified reporting and disclosure for welfare plans under ERISA section 104a3, simplified annual reports under ERISA section 104a2A for pension plans that cover fewer than 100
participants, and alternative methods of compliance for all pension plans under ERISA section 110. The Form 5500
Annual Return/Report, and related instructions and regulations, are also promulgated under the DOLs general regulatory authority in ERISA sections 109 and 505.
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019
SECURE Act, included various provisions designed to improve the private employer-based retirement system that either directly changed or necessitated changes to the annual reporting requirements under ERISA
and the Code.2 On September 15, 2021, the DOL, the Internal Revenue Service IRS, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation PBGC collectively the Agencies published a notice of proposed forms revisions NPFR to amend the Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report to implement the SECURE Act and related reporting changes with a
limited number of proposed forms revisions beginning with the 2021
reporting year; with most of the proposed revisions not applying until the 2022 reporting year. 86 FR 51488
Sept. 15, 2021. The DOL
simultaneously published a proposed rulemaking NPRM required to implement the proposed forms revisions. 86 FR 51284 Sept. 15, 2021.
The Agencies received 114 comments on the NPFR and NPRM. The comments, which were all posted on the Departments website, generally focus on the proposed changes for the 2022
plan year forms. This document is limited to the changes for the 2021 plan year forms. Specifically, the reporting changes are revisions to the instructions that: 1 Implement the SECURE Act amendment to ERISA section 103g by requiring multiple employer defined contribution pension plans to include aggregate account balance information by employer on their existing Form 5500 attachment on participating employer information; and 2 noting that a pooled employer plan is a multiple employer plan that files a single Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report, and requiring such plans to indicate in an attachment to their Form 5500 i whether the plans pooled plan provider complied with the Form PR
registration requirements for pooled plan providers; and ii if the answer is yes, to provide the AckID number for the pooled plan providers latest Form PR filing.3 Although not a change to the instructions, in response to comments raising the issue, this document also advises filers that the Department is continuing the current requirement that welfare plans that file a Form 5500 must include participating employer information notwithstanding that the SECURE Act amended ERISA section 103g to limit that specific section to retirement plans. No changes to the DOLs implementing regulations are required for these instruction changes.
The Agencies intend to address the other changes to the Form 5500 and related regulations proposed in the September 2021 NPFR and NPRM in one or more other separate and later Notices of Adoption of Final Forms Revisions and Notices of Final Rulemaking. The instruction changes
1 References to the Form 5500 Annual Return/
Report may include, depending on the context, the Form 5500, the Form 5500SF, and the Form 5500
EZ, Annual Return of One Participant Owners and Their Spouses Retirement Plan. The Form 5500EZ
is a return that is required only to satisfy the Code.
Form 5500EZ filers are not subject to Title I of ERISA.
2 The SECURE Act was enacted on December 20, 2019, as Division O of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 Pub. L. 11694.

3 These requirements for pooled employer plans are limited to the Form 5500 because the Form 5500SF instructions provide, consistent with the proposal, that pooled employer plans are not eligible to file the FormSF. The proposal would also have required that all multiple employer plans file the Form 5500 regardless of whether they would otherwise be eligible to file the Form 5500
SF. The Department is not adopting that change for all MEPs in the 2021 forms but intends to address that proposed change in a separate and later Notice.

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