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EBSA News Release: [11/20/2003]
Contact Name: Sharon
Morrissey
Phone Number: (202) 693-8664
Labor Department Issues Reporting and Disclosure Guide
for Employee Benefit Plans
WASHINGTON--The U. S.
Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
today issued the Reporting and Disclosure Guide for Employee Benefit Plans.
The guide will assist employers, plan sponsors, service providers and other
plan officials in meeting their reporting and disclosure obligations under the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“This guide is designed to help plan officials understand the scope
of ERISA’s basic reporting and disclosure rules,” said Assistant
Secretary of Labor Ann L. Combs. “It is the latest of EBSA’s
compliance assistance efforts to help the benefits community protect workers by
giving them the tools and programs necessary to comply with ERISA.”
For the first time, the booklet includes information on group health
plan disclosure requirements under Part 7 of ERISA and the new blackout period
notice, which requires 401(k) and other individual account pension plans to
provide advance notice when participants’ rights are suspended for direct
investments, loans or distributions.
Prepared with the assistance of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
(PBGC), the guide provides information and overview charts on:
- Basic ERISA disclosures that retirement, group health and other
welfare benefit plans must furnish to participants and beneficiaries;
- PBGC reporting and disclosure requirements for single-employer
defined benefit pension plans, and
- Annual reporting requirements for the Form 5500 and Form M-1.
The guide also contains a list of EBSA and PBGC resources, including the
agencies’ Internet sites that containing laws, regulations and other
guidance relating to ERISA’s reporting and disclosure requirements. The
publication is available by calling toll-free, 1-866-444-EBSA (3272) or online
at www.dol.gov/ebsa under Publications.
As part of its educational and outreach efforts, EBSA routinely issues
publications and guidance to explain the rights and responsibilities associated
with establishing and maintaining a retirement, group health or other welfare
benefit plan under ERISA.
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