Charges for printed copies of 5500 in SAR--how much?

[BG5150]

What charges, if any, do you put in the SAR for copies of the paper 5500 for the per page and full copy items?

I usually put $0.25/page and $0.75/$3.00 for full copies of SF/5500, respectively.

What you you put in your SARs?

[Bird]

Our (Ft William) software spits out "The charge to cover copying costs will be $5.00 for the full annual report, or $0.25 per page for any part thereof."

I assume that's the max in the regs.

[BG5150]

Even for the SF's? Pretty steep for 3 pages...

[A Shot in the Dark]

We use FT William and when we complete the SAR checklist, you update the copying costs as part of the checklist.

I thought the "standard" for setting costs was defined as "reasonable".

[Peter Gulia]

Does anyone mention a charge more than $5.00 if the report is more than 20 pages?

[bzorc]

I have always used 25 cents per page, so for a large report, the cost could be greater than $5.00

[BG5150]

I have always used 25 cents per page, so for a large report, the cost could be greater than $5.00

So what do you put in for the cost fo the entire report? Leave it blank? Or do you calculate it for each plan?

I think this is becoming less and less relevant with all the forms on the DOL site now, but it has to be in there.

[Peter Gulia]

Just a curiosity: If specifying the administrator's charge for the report is as simple as multiplying 25 cents by the number of pages, does the 5500 software count the number of pages (including those of uploaded attachments) and compute the arithmetic to fill-in the charge? Or is that too much to hope for?

[ESOP Guy]

Just a curiosity: If specifying the administrator's charge for the report is as simple as multiplying 25 cents by the number of pages, does the 5500 software count the number of pages (including those of uploaded attachments) and compute the arithmetic to fill-in the charge? Or is that too much to hope for?

I will admit now a days someone prepares all my 5500s and SARs and I just check them (and give very little thought to this costs). But back when I was doing it the answers would have been: too much to hope for.

You had to hard code the cost in or use some default setting.

[icuhowie]

Hello,  

First time Posting here. 

Received a "Summary Annual Report" for our company Financial My Savings Plan ( 401k )  little useful information in the report, but there is an option to

receive a copy of the full annual report, or part there of, on request. The items listed below are included in that report. 

* Financial Information; 
* information on payments to service providers;
* Assets held for investments;
* Transactions in excess of 5 percent of the plan assets and 
* Information regarding any common or collective trusts, pooled separate accounts, master trusts or 103-12 investment entities in which the plan participates. 

--- 

OK lots of information,   I can read the Summary a get a little information but not much. So I requested the Full Annual Report and was sent page 1, 2 and 3 of the 550 Form that was filed and has less information then the Summary report. 

So my question is ,  What should a Annual Report look like?   I want some detail, 

did not find anything with google , but did find this forum .

Thanks for any information.

[Kevin C]

Forms 5500 are freely available on the DOL website.  The fastest way to get a copy is to go there and search for the filing.

https://www.efast.dol.gov/portal/app/disseminate?execution=e1s1

 

Please note the search engine they use is really picky, so you will need to exactly match the first part of the plan or employer name as it appears on the Form 5500.  Or, you can search using the EIN listed on the SAR.  It should bring up all the Form 5500's they've filed since 2009.  Find the one you want and you can print or save it. If it was filed very recently, the site may show a message that the attachments to the filing are not available yet.  That is normal and the attachments will show up on the site after someone has looked at them to make sure they did not attach something they were not supposed to attach.

[icuhowie]

Kevin, 
Perfect,  
now why couldn't my company or even the AON H... the company that manages our 401k do this?
 

Thanks again 

[Bug on my window]

Normally the charge should be 'whatever it costs the plan sponsor' to respond to the request, but no more than $.25 per page. At least, that's my understanding of 29 CFR 2520.104b-30. Cornell Law School 104b-30 Charges for Documents