Employee Benefits Security Administration November 16, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains revisions to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report forms, including the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan and a new Form 5500-SF, Short Form Annual Return/ Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan (Short Form 5500 or Form 5500- SF), filed for employee pension and welfare benefit plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (Code). The Form 5500 Annual Return/Report forms, including the schedules and attachments, are an important source of financial, funding, and other information about employee benefit plans for the Department of Labor, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and the Internal Revenue Service (the Agencies), as well as for plan sponsors, participants and beneficiaries, and the general public. The revisions to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report forms contained in this document, including the new Short Form 5500, are intended to streamline the annual reporting process, reduce annual reporting burdens, especially for small businesses, update the annual reporting forms to reflect current issues and agency priorities, incorporate new reporting requirements contained in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and facilitate electronic filing. Some of the forms revisions will apply on a transitional basis for the 2008 reporting year before all of the forms revisions are fully implemented for the 2009 reporting year as part of the switch under the ERISA Filing Acceptance System (EFAST) to a wholly electronic filing system (EFAST2). The forms revisions affect employee pension and welfare benefit plans, plan sponsors, administrators, and service providers to plans subject to annual reporting requirements under ERISA and the Code.