What's New for Practitioners Archive

2021 Form 5500: On December 29, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and PBGC released advance informational copies of the 2021 Form 5500 Annual Return/Report and related instructions. See EBSA’s News Release for more information, including a summary of key changes.

Expected Retirement Age Annual Update: On December 3, 2021, PBGC published a final rule amending its valuation regulation (29 CFR 4044) by substituting a new table for selecting the “retirement rate category.” The new table is used to determine the applicable expected retirement age (“XRA”) for participants in single-employer plans with 2022 valuation dates.  XRA is one of the assumptions used to determine liabilities under ERISA section 4044 (per 29 CFR 4044). A copy of the table is available on PBGC’s ERISA Section 4044 Retirement Assumptions web page.

Special Financial Assistance Plans Approaching Insolvency: On December 27, 2021, PBGC will begin accepting applications for any plan in priority group 2 that is expected to be insolvent within one year of the date the plan’s application is filed. New SFA questions and answers provide information about the application date for priority group 2 plans. The questions and answers are also accessible on the SFA Program page under Resources.

Mortality Tables:  PBGC has updated the ERISA section 4044 mortality table for 2022 valuations. This table is used to determine liabilities when a single-employer plan terminates in an involuntary or distress termination (per 29 CFR 4044). It is also used when a multiemployer plan incurs a mass withdrawal (per 29 CFR 4281). HTML and Excel versions of the 2022 mortality tables are available on PBGC’s ERISA section 4044/4050 mortality table webpage. A unisex version of the table is also available on that webpage. The unisex version is used in specified situations to determine the benefit transfer amount under the Missing Participants Program (per 29 CFR 4050).

Benefit Restrictions - Present Value of PBGC Maximum Guarantee: On November 22, 2021, PBGC posted a table showing the applicable present values for 2022 plan years. A two-column spreadsheet version of the table is also available for convenient copying. For more information see Technical Update 07-04.

Solicitation of Nominations for Appointment to PBGC’s Advisory Committee: On November 1, 2021, PBGC published a solicitation for nominations for the agency’s Advisory Committee, which gives advice on investment issues and other matters related to PBGC’s mission. Under ERISA, the Advisory Committee members are appointed to serve term appointments. PBGC is currently seeking nominations for three seats: one representing the general public and two representing employers, which will be vacant in February 2022.

The Committee meets six times a year with at least one joint session with PBGC’s Board of Directors. The Committee consists of seven members: two representatives of employee organizations, two representatives of employers who maintain pension plans, and three representatives of the general public. Nominees must have experience with defined benefit plans.

Guarantee Limit: As a result of the indexing rules provided by law, the maximum guarantee limits for single-employer plans that fail in 2022 will be 2.82% higher than the limits that applied for 2021. A table showing the 2022 guarantee limits for various ages and payment forms is currently available. The guarantee limits for multiemployer plans are not indexed and have not changed.

ERISA 4010 Filing Relief: On October 15, 2021, PBGC issued Technical Update 21-1 providing guidance on the effect of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) on ERISA 4010 filing requirements. The technical update waives the filing requirement entirely if such filing would not have been required absent an election to retroactively increase the prefunding balance. The technical update also provides that already submitted filings do not need to be amended solely to revise actuarial information that changes after the filing was submitted because of various ARP-related elections.

2022 Premium Rates: PBGC has determined the premium rates applicable for the 2022 plan year in accordance with the indexing rules provided in section 4006 of ERISA. The Premium Rates web page has been updated accordingly.

Coverage Opinion Letters Pilot Program Extended: PBGC’s pilot program — under which employers may request, in certain circumstances, an Opinion Letter about whether a plan in the process of being created is likely to be covered by PBGC — has been extended to September 30, 2022. For more information, see PBGC’s Insurance Coverage web page.

Special Financial Assistance Questions and Answers: PBGC has added new special financial assistance (SFA) questions and answers to provide information about the effect on SFA applications of any changes to PBGC’s SFA interim final rule. PBGC is reviewing comments on the interim final rule and will move to publish a final rule when that review has concluded. The questions and answers are also accessible on the SFA Program page under Resources.

Reportable Events Filings – Reminder About Upcoming Change: Starting October 1, 2021, reportable event filings (Form 10, Form 10-Advance, and Form 200) will need to be prepared and submitted using PBGC’s e-filing portal, a secure application that has been available for this purpose since 2016. The paper forms will remain on PBGC’s website for illustrative purposes only. For more information on reportable events and using PBGC’s e-filing portal, see the Reportable Events & Large Unpaid Contributions webpage.

New Pension Insurance Data Tables Posting: The final installment of the 2019 Data Tables for PBGC's Single-Employer and Multiemployer Programs is now available. This installment includes various breakdowns of the number of PBGC-insured defined benefit plans, number of plan participants, hybrid plans, frozen plans, premium revenue, plan funding, and risk transfer activity. Some of the breakdowns are by industry, location, plan size, and plan funded status.

2019 Pension Insurance Data Tables: The first installment of the 2019 Data Tables for PBGC’s Single-Employer and Multiemployer Programs and the private defined benefit pension system is now available. This installment includes various breakdowns of PBGC claims, guaranteed benefit payments, and summaries of PBGC operations.

New Version of My PAA Now Available: The new and improved version of My PAA is now available and ready to accept electronic premium filings for plan years beginning in 2021. Resources and training materials, including a summary of the key enhancements, are available on PBGC.gov. PBGC encourages all premium filers to review these resources.

Upcoming Changes to My PAA: The new version of My PAA (to be launched April 26) streamlines and improves the process for submitting premium filings created using private-sector software. To give practitioners a heads up about the new process, PBGC has posted information about the upcoming private-sector software-related changes.

2021 Premium Filing Instructions: The Comprehensive Premium Filing Instructions for 2021 plan years have been approved by OMB and are now available on PBGC's website. My PAA will be ready to accept 2021 filings on Monday, April 26, 2021, when the new and improved version of My PAA is launched. See “Upcoming Changes to My PAA” for more information about the new version of My PAA.

Upcoming Changes to My PAA: The launch of the new and improved version of My Plan Administration Account (My PAA) has been delayed from March 1, 2021, to April 26, 2021. Important information about the upcoming changes is available on PBGC’s website. Additionally, to ensure all My PAA users are aware of the upcoming changes, everyone with a My PAA account will receive an email in the coming days.

New Assumption for Contributions to Single-Employer Pension Plans in PIMS Modeling: PBGC has changed the way it estimates future contributions by single-employer plan sponsors in its SE-PIMS Model effective with the 2019 Projections Report, which was published on September 14, 2020. SE-PIMS is used to project PBGC’s future financial status for the annual Projections Report and for other risk and financial analyses. The assumption for employer contributions impacts the projected future funded status of a pension plan. The funded status then impacts the amount of potential claims that PBGC would take on through distress terminations and also changes the amount of variable rate premium that a plan is projected to pay in the future. The new assumption and the analysis that supports is described here.

Annual Update of Maximum Civil Monetary Penalty: Federal law requires that PBGC amend its civil penalty regulations annually to incorporate an inflation adjustment on the maximum penalty that may be assessed for failure to provide certain required information (e.g., reportable event filings, 4010 filings, certain multiemployer plan notices). Accordingly, PBGC published a final rule amending two regulations (29 CFR parts 4071 and 4302). Although the maximum penalty is increasing, it is uncommon for PBGC to assess this amount. The agency's goal is to encourage compliance. In most cases, when PBGC assesses an information penalty, it is for an amount significantly less than the maximum permitted.