Did/Can DOL/IRS Lose Track Of Form 5500 Filers?

[Guest Scarlet Knight]

Strange but true. 2 potential new clients failed to file their 5500's for recent years. They are non-EZ filers...

One last filed for 2000 and the other last filed for 2001. Neither has ever received a notice from IRS or DOL for non-filing. Is it possible they just fell off the DOL/IRS tracking system?? Just curious, how could this have happened??? Has this ever happened with anyone else?

Obviously we are having them submit under the Voluntary Compliance program and pay $1,500 each to get them back on track.

[PAL]

I have had the same experience and here are my thoughts:

It was around that time that the processing of 5500's was moved from IRS to DOL and many things fell through the cracks until they developed better coordination and edit checks with EFast. In fact, I think it has just been in the past 2 years that the IRS sent out a ton of notices related to delinquent 2004 Form 5500. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a delinquency notice for anything in the 1999 - 2002 time frame but perhaps others have.

In addition, you don't say what type of plan the filings are for (DB/DC/H&W). H&W plans can fall in and out of filing status and until recently there was no way to note that so you would just file one year and not the next. As a result, for a long time, I don't think that they were tracked at all.

Just my thoughts - hope it helps..

PAL

[Guest Scarlet Knight]

Strange but true. 2 potential new clients failed to file their 5500's for recent years. They are non-EZ filers...

One last filed for 2000 and the other last filed for 2001. Neither has ever received a notice from IRS or DOL for non-filing. Is it possible they just fell off the DOL/IRS tracking system?? Just curious, how could this have happened??? Has this ever happened with anyone else?

Obviously we are having them submit under the Voluntary Compliance program and pay $1,500 each to get them back on track.

They were psp/401(k) plans