Do you know how 2022’s holidays fit?

With some holidays regularly on a Monday and others observed on a Friday or Monday, 2022’s calendar results in ten or eleven three-day weekends for many workers.

For most, our due date for 2021 personal income tax returns is April 18. For residents of Maine or Massachusetts, it’s April 19.

For retirement, health, and other employee-benefit plans, the due date for a plan’s Form 5500 report on 2021 is August 1. The typical extended due date is October 17.

For details, read my 2022 chart [attached] about how Federal and State governments and the New York Stock Exchange observe holidays.

2022 holidays recognized in public law in the United States of America.pdf

The due date for a plan’s Form 5500 report on 2021 is August 1. The typical extended due date is October 17.

26 C.F.R. § 301.7503-1 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-301/subpart-ECFRdf766a4800b6a98/subject-group-ECFRb33b9dd84d207a0/section-301.7503-1

Based on this, would you agree that the deadline for a Form 5500 extended to April 15 (plan year end of 6/30/2021) is due April 18th?

No.

The Form 5500 instructions state: “If the filing due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal holiday, the return/report may be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal holiday.”

If a Form 5500 return is only a tax return (and not a report under ERISA, or to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation), the Treasury department’s tax-law rule for holidays, 26 C.F.R. § 301.7503-1, applies. That rule recognizes a holiday observed in the District of Columbia. Because Emancipation Day’s April 16 is in 2022 a Saturday, this holiday is observed on Friday, April 15. D.C. Code § 28-2701.

But neither Emancipation Day nor Good Friday (nor any other day in April) is a Federal holiday.

5 U.S.C. § 6103(a) http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:5%20section:6103%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title5-section6103)&f=treesort&edition=prelim&num=0&jumpTo=true

Because the EFAST2 software receives returns and reports for three agencies, one might imagine the Labor department having set the software to follow a combination of Federal holidays and the tax-law rule.

But absent a Labor department document specifying the relief, my client would want to submit a report on an ERISA-governed plan by April 15.