Much-anticipated regulations are perhaps closer than just on the horizon, officials from the IRS and the Department of Labor (DOL) reported in a Nov. 6 session of the SPARK Forum. 
LTPT Guidance
In the wake of the enactment of the SECURE 2.0 Act, the Treasury Department worked on guidance regarding how that law should be applied, but in the process, some matters took precedence over others. One of the matters that was at least temporarily put on a shelf was guidance concerning long-term, part-time (LTPT) employees.
“We were a long way down the road,” said Treasury Deputy Benefits Tax Counsel Helen Morrison, but then the “LTPT piece” was pulled.
Morrison assured attendees that the wait will be over. She said Treasury will be releasing the LTPT guidance “very soon,” adding, “you will see it in the very near future.”
Morrison was echoing comments made by Treasury Benefits Tax Counsel Carol Weiser Oct. 24 at the ASPPA Annual Conference in which she said issuing those regulations is “very high priority” for Treasury, adding thar the guidance will be a “significant, comprehensive update.”
Auto-Portability
Later that afternoon in a dialogue with key Department of Labor officials led by moderator Mark Iwry, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, DOL Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Ali Khawar at the department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration addressed auto-portability.
Auto portability is “an important part of the puzzle,” said Khawar. He noted that SECURE 2.0 contained an exemption for certain auto-portability transactions and that the DOL will be issuing guidance that will provide more clarity on what the statutory text says.
As with LTPT guidance, Khawar’s comments were similar to those articulated Oct. 24 at the ASPPA Annual Conference—in this case, remarks made by Assistant Secretary of Labor Lisa Gomez. She had told attendees that auto portability is “certainly an issue we need to be addressing” and that the agency is working on guidance which “will be coming our soon.”
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