IRS letter forwarding program

[Bird]

I decided to give the IRS letter forwarding program for lost participants a shot; I had a plan with 5 such participants and wasn't making any progress. Mailed the letter on May 24, 2011...just received confirmation, dated December 16, that they were forwarding the letters.

So don't be holding your breath if you try this.

[mbozek]

I decided to give the IRS letter forwarding program for lost participants a shot; I had a plan with 5 such participants and wasn't making any progress. Mailed the letter on May 24, 2011...just received confirmation, dated December 16, that they were forwarding the letters.

So don't be holding your breath if you try this.

You get what you pay for. Or as a President once said be glad you dont get all the government you pay for.

[pmacduff]

A few years back I had a terminating plan & sent the letters to the IRS locator in June.

Didn't hear from the IRS and many of the participants found me through others that were getting paid out.

Then almost a full 12 months later the IRS sent the letters out. Most had already been paid out.

I received a flurry of phone calls. People called again to see if they had more money coming.

Not a big deal I suppose but was a pain for me and took that much more time addressing all of the phone calls and explaining the IRS letter......

[david rigby]

Thanks for posting your experience. Best advice is to make sure the letter includes a date and warning that alerts the recipient to a possible delay.

Your tax dollars at work.

[Kevin C]

I mentioned the letter forwarding program to an IRS agent here on audit once. He explained that they have a pile of letters that need to be forwarded and when someone doesn't have anything else to do, they get some letters, look up the addresses and forward them. They don't have a specific person assigned to forward the letters. That's why it can take so long.

We've had fairly good luck using the program. You just have to plan well ahead if you have missing participants. If you are looking for no more than 49 per year, there is no fee. It's hard to beat that.

[Lou S.]

Good info Kevin. Nice story on how the IRs goes about forwarding them.

We too have used it with some sucess at times. Seems to be hit or miss when we use it. But we view it more as complying with the DOL rules on locating lost participants than any real expection that it will actually find a lost participant.

[david rigby]

Effective after 08/31/2012, the IRS will no longer permit its letter forwarding progam to be used by plan administrators seeking to locate missing participants.

Rev. Proc. 2012-35.

[BG5150]

Effective after 08/31/2012, the IRS will no longer permit its letter forwarding progam to be used by plan administrators seeking to locate missing participants.

Rev. Proc. 2012-35.

Do you have a link to this? I cannot find it.

[david rigby]

http://benefitslink.com/src/irs/revproc2012-35.pdf