Form 5500 form late filing thru DFVCP

Hi,

I am now going thru an exercise since I found out I was delinquent un filing the requisite form (5500), since the threshold is 250K, should I be filing for those years only when my plan assets were above the threshold or do I need to file or all the years, since the plan began?

I am assuming once I file for the specific starting year, I will file continuously as the plan assets have been above 250K!

Thank you in advance for the help.

Here is a little bit of background to start: I assume you are referring to filing the Form 5500-EZ and that you (and maybe your spouse) are the only individuals to participate in the plan.

The rule is you must file for a plan year when the total assets (adding in the assets you may have in other qualified plans like this one) reaches the $250K threshold.  Note that each plan needs to file even if a plan by itself is below threshold.  You look at the total assets that will be reported on the Form 5500-EZ on line 6a(2) of the form which is total assets of the plan for the plan year.  Note that this line does not take into consideration any outstanding liabilities that the plan may have as of the end of the plan year.

To answer your question, you do not have to file for a year if your total assets go below the $250,000.  That being said, going forward you may want to file anyway if your asset dip below the threshold since the IRS may send you a letter noting you filed in the previous year but not for this year.  Worse, they may send you a penalty letter for a delinquent filing.  The effort to complete a Form 5500-EZ can be much less than the effort to respond to the IRS letters.

Since you appear already to have delinquent filings, you should file under the Form 5500-EZ Delinquent Filer Penalty Relief Program using Form 14704 to transmit all of the filings.  One quirk with this process is you have to file on paper Form 5500-EZ for each year using the Form 5500-EZ for that year.  You can download previous year forms and instructions going back to 1990 here: Prior year forms and instructions | Internal Revenue Service

Good luck!

Thank you Paul, you clarified the one question I had about when I should start - and that is what I thought. thank you or the other details as well. 

yes it will be cumbersome to do this manually, but whatever needs to be done will have to be done! I already have the form 14074 filled and was just waiting to know which year to start filing from. 

Mohan