Latest word on PTIN- there is hope it won't be needed for 5500

[Tom Poje]

this is ASPPAs latest note (hopefully they are not offeneded by my posting of this message. I guess I could have simply said ASPPA has been talking with IRS officials and they have indicated they may withdraw their request for the PTIN requirement. Of course, as they indicate, nothing is guaranteed at this point in time)The ASPPA note did carry the following note: This email (including any attachments) is confidential and may contain privileged or proprietary information. It is meant solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, any unauthorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the email (or any attachment) is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the sender and then delete this copy and the reply from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.Since I was the intended recipient and am passing it on for information purposes I assume I meet the criteria intended.

Happy Holidays everyone. As you know, the IRS has been indicating in public comments that the PTIN registration requirements will apply to preparers of the Form 5500. Consequently, we have been engaged in ongoing conversations with the IRS on exactly how that would work. In addition to testifying at a public hearing, we have had several private meetings with them to discuss the significant problems that could result from the over broad application of a preparer registration requirement to the Form 5500. In these meetings, we have been emphasizing the information return nature of the form and the relatively limited amount of information on the form that actually impacts a tax return. Most significantly, we have been pressing the point that if too many staff are required to register it will ultimately result in an unnecessary increase in administrative costs to the detriment of retirement plan participants.

As these conversations have continued, including some back and forth on the challenging issues involved, we are beginning to believe that senior IRS officials are starting to conclude that it would simply be easier to exempt the Form 5500 from the registration requirement. Because of this, we are no longer recommending that service providers register their staff in order to take advantage of the education grandfathering rule, because we believe, at this point, that it is more likely than not that the Form 5500 will be exempt.

Let me emphasize that we have not received anything official from the IRS, and it is certainly possible that they could change their mind again. If we sense anything different, we will let you know immediately. We also recognize that many of you incurred costs to register your staff and we are very mindful of that. We based that prior recommendation on what we were being told emphatically by the IRS at the time, namely that preparers of the Form 5500 would be subject to the registration requirements, and we wanted to make sure that people were in a position to take advantage of the grandfathering that applied to the educational requirements.