The Internal Revenue Service recently warned missing or unresponsive retirement plan participants that uncashed distribution checks from qualified retirement plans are taxable.
Revenue Ruling 2019-19, issued on Aug. 14, applies to a participant who receives, but neither cashes nor rolls over, a distribution check.
"Because Internal Revenue Code Section 402(a) provides that any amount actually distributed from a qualified retirement plan is taxed under Section 72 in the year distributed (subject to the rollover rules), the ruling holds that the participant is taxed on the distribution check in the year she receives it, even if she does not cash it," Eversheds Sutherland attorneys explained in a recent alert.
The IRS held in its ruling that a mandatory distribution from a qualified plan "that is sent in one year, received in that year but not cashed in that year, is nevertheless taxable to the recipient in 2019 and subject to withholding and reporting by the payor," added Barry Klein, an attorney at Stradley Ronon's Philadelphia office.
The IRS guidance "helps payors understand their withholding obligations under very narrow circumstances," Klein said, and "appears to be a first step towards more complete guidance regarding uncashed checks."
While both Klein and Fred Reish, partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath in Los Angeles, opine that the IRS ruling isn't surprising, Klein notes that the guidance fails to address "harder questions such as what happens if the check is not received, is returned to the payor or is received in the following year? Or what happens with respect to missing participants?"
Payors, Klein continued, "usually must decide how to withhold and report when the check is sent, not when they later learn that the check was not received, was not cashed or that the participant cannot be found. Hopefully these questions will be addressed with additional guidance."
Reish adds that while he's been "interpreting existing law" to follow the IRS Aug. 14 guidance, "it's an unfortunate result, but it is, at least in my opinion, the correct application of the law."