Late 2010 Form 5500 filing notices

[chc93]

In the last couple of days, we've started to have clients call us telling us that they got a late 2010 Form 5500 filing notice. We filed the Form 5558 with the IRS befor the 7-month deadline. It appears that for these clients that have called, they don't recall receiving the IRS acknowledgement letter that the 5558 was received by the IRS. So the next step I guess is a certified mail receipt. Other than that, I'm not sure what else can be done.

As far as we know, these IRS acknowledgement letters may not have been consistently sent to plan sponsors. For us, either the client calls and asks what to do with the notice, or sends us a copy of the notice, or never tells us they got the notice, or may not have even gotten the notice. We haven't tracked this. So it appears that if the IRS acknowledgement letter was not sent/received, and filing was after the 7-month deadline, a late filing notice will be coming.

In the most recent example, an April 30, 2011 plan year end 2010 Form 5500 was filed on February 15, 2012 (on the extended deadline) and the client got the IRS late filing notice the same day in the mail.

So far, this is all for the 2010 Form 5500. Has anyone else heard about this? The IRS has GOT to get their act together...

[K2retire]

The IRS has GOT to get their act together...

That would be reasonable, but highly unlikely!