Employee Benefits Security Administration January 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This Notice describes changes to the Department of Labor's (Department) Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program (DFVC Program or Program). Administrators of employee benefit plans subject to Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) who fail to file annual reports on a timely basis can be subject to civil penalties under section 502(c)(2) of ERISA. The DFVC Program is intended to encourage delinquent plan administrators to comply with their annual reporting obligations under ERISA through the assessment of reduced civil penalties. The DFVC Program was initially adopted in 1995 and was last updated in a published Federal Register Notice on March 28, 2002 (2002 Notice). The Department's DFVC Program Web site has been updated periodically since 2002 to reflect the adoption of technical changes to the Program. Most recently, the DFVC Program Web site was updated to reflect the Department's final regulation mandating electronic filing of annual reports as part of the implementation of a wholly electronic ERISA Filing Acceptance System (EFAST2) for those reports. (See www.dol.gov/ebsa.) This Notice also describes an existing online penalty calculator and Internet-based payment system for the DFVC Program. (See https://www.dol.gov/ebsa/ calculator/dfvcpmain.html). This Notice is intended to be a comprehensive update and restatement of the DFVC Program that incorporates the changes that have been made in the DFVC Program since the 2002 Notice.

The Department of Labor (the Department), in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA 95) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to comment on proposed and continuing collections of information. This helps the Department assess the impact of its information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. It also helps the public understand the Department's information collection requirements and provide the requested data in the desired format. The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) is soliciting comments on the proposed information collection request (ICR) described below. A copy of the ICRs may be obtained by contacting the office listed in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. ICRs also are available at reginfo.gov (https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain).