A provision in a new law will return Form 5500 deadlines to what they were before the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act was passed.
Tucked
inside the newly passed Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of
2015 is a provision setting the deadline for Form 5500 filing extensions back
to two and one-half months after the original filing deadline.
The
Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015,
signed by President Obama on July 31, 2015, extended the due date to three and one-half months after the filing deadline, or November 15. The new
bill repeals this extension; for calendar-year plans this means the deadline
for filing an extension, if requested, is October 15.
Phyllis C. Borzi,
assistant secretary of labor for the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee
Benefit Security Administration (EBSA), had said she would urge Congress to repeal the deadline extension. She explained that the bill
extended the deadline for filing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), but
not the DOL. “We felt blindsided by this, and we think it was a move in the
wrong direction, especially since the Government Accountability Office and
Office of Inspector General have asked us to get the information sooner,” Borzi
said.
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has announced a number of projects it will complete before the end of 2015 that will affect government pensions.
The
Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) plans to issue guidance related
to pensions through two separate standard-setting projects: Pensions Provided
through Certain Multiple-Employer Defined Benefit Pension Plans, and Pension
Issues.
In
December, the Board plans to issue guidance to assist governments participating
in certain private-sector or federally sponsored multiple-employer defined
benefit pension plans that do not have access to information required by the
new GASB pension standards, which took effect this summer. Plans envisioned to
be addressed by the guidance include Taft-Hartley plans and plans with similar
characteristics.
Stakeholders
alerted the Board that a small number of governments do not have access to the
information required to comply with the new pension standards when they
participate in certain private-sector or federally sponsored multiple-employer
plans. To address this issue, the Board proposed in October to scope these governments out of GASB Statement 68 (Accounting and Financial
Reporting for Pensions) requirements and to provide them with alternative
guidance.
The
forthcoming Statement will set separate standards for employers participating
in certain multiple-employer pension plans that have specific characteristics.
These standards will address recognition and measurement of pension expense and
liabilities, note disclosures, and required supplementary information.
More
information about the project can be found here.
NEXT: Pension standards and fiduciary activities
This
month, the GASB expects to issue an Exposure Draft containing proposed guidance
to address certain issues raised by stakeholders during the implementation of
the new GASB pension standards.
The
proposal addresses:
Issues
related to presentation of payroll-related measures;
Issues
related to employer-paid member contributions; and
Issues
related to deviations from the guidance in Actuarial Standards of Practice.
The
Board plans to issue a final Statement in early 2016. More information about
the project can be found here.
The
GASB is also expected to issue an Exposure Draft in December about accounting
and financial reporting for fiduciary activities.
Currently,
governments are required to present financial statements regarding their
fiduciary activities in their fiduciary fund financial statements. However, the
concept of what constitutes fiduciary activity is not clearly defined. GASB
research and inquiries from stakeholders have indicated there is diversity in
practice in the current reporting of various types of fiduciary activities.
In
the Board’s forthcoming Exposure Draft, it will propose specific criteria for
when and how a government would report a fiduciary activity. The proposal will
also address classification of fiduciary funds and recognition of fiduciary
fund liabilities.
The Board is
scheduled to issue a final Statement in late 2016. More information about the
project can be found here.