EBSA Answers Funding Notice Questions

"Pending further guidance, the department will, as a matter of enforcement policy, treat a plan administrator as satisfying the requirements … if the administrator has complied with the guidance contained in this memorandum and has acted in accordance with a good faith, reasonable interpretation of those requirements with respect to matters not specifically addressed in this memorandum," Doyle writes.

The bulletin includes one model notice designed for single-employer defined benefit plans and a second model notice designed for multiemployer defined benefit plans.

"Use of the models is not mandatory, and plans may use other notice forms to satisfy the new annual funding notice content requirements," Doyle writes. "However, pending further guidance, use of an appropriately completed model notice will, as a matter of department enforcement policy, satisfy the content requirements of [the new notice rules]."

In the questions-and-answers section, Doyle notes that a defined benefit plan administrator must send an annual funding notice to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the agency that insures pension benefits.

"However, pending further guidance, the department will not take any enforcement action regarding the failure to furnish an annual funding notice to the PBGC for a single-employer plan with liabilities that do not exceed plan assets by more than $50 million, provided that the administrator furnishes the latest available annual funding notice to the PBGC within 30 days of receiving a written request from the PBGC," Doyle writes.

A copy of the EBSA bulletin is available here.