Form 8955-SSA
Posted on Fri, Jan 20, 2012
The Internal Revenue Service has addressed when a plan administrator may answer “yes” to Question 8 on the new Form 8955-SSA, affirming that the required information was timely furnished to participants. A plan administrator may answer “yes” to Question 8 if the statements or other documentation issued to the participants include the following information:
- Name of the plan
- Name and address of the plan administrator
- Name of the participant
- Nature, amount, and form of the deferred vested benefit to which such participant is entitled.
Thus, for purposes of completing Form 8955-SSA, the plan administrator’s notice to the plan participant does not need to include the participant’s social security number, the codes on page 2 of the Form 8955-SSA used to identify previously reported participants, or any information regarding any benefits which are non-forfeitable if the participant dies before a certain date. The Form 8955-SSA was created because, as part of the redesign on the Form 5500 annual report several years ago, the requirement to report participants with deferred vested benefits on Form 5500 Schedule SSA was eliminated. However, the IRS still wants to gather information about participants who terminate with a deferred vested benefit.
More instructions from the IRS are available at http://www.irs.gov/retirement/article/0,,id=238959,00.html.
The new FAQ is available at http://www.irs.gov/retire
