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PBGC Seeks to Extend Info Collection About Missing Participants

Government Affairs
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) plans to ask the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its approval to extend its collection of information to aid its effort to locate missing participants and beneficiaries and pay their benefits.

The PBGC intends to request that the OMB extend approval, under the Paperwork Reduction Act, of a collection of information under PBGC’s regulation on Missing Participants, with modifications.
 
The PBGC seeks information from plans that participate in the missing participants program in order to:
 
  • identify the plans and the missing participants and beneficiaries;
  • search for missing participants and beneficiaries;
  • determine the persons entitled to benefits that the plans transfer to the PBGC and the form and amount of benefits payable; and
  • to refer claimants of benefits being held elsewhere to the institutions holding the benefits.
The PBGC says that it intends to modify its information collection to require additional information about missing participants in two categories in order to properly withhold taxes when such participants are located and their benefits claimed and paid.
 
  1. For defined contribution plans that permit Roth accounts, the PBGC intends to require a breakdown of qualified and non-qualified Roth amounts transferred to it (if any), and, if non-qualified Roth amounts are being transferred, the date the first Roth contribution was made. 
  2. When relevant for defined benefit and DC plans, the PBGC intends to require identification of the portion of a participant’s benefit transfer amount treated as foreign-source income, and how that determination was made for DB plans. 
Comments Welcome
 
The PBGC is seeking public comments to help it:
 
  • evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for it to properly perform its functions,
  • evaluate whether the information will have practical utility;
  • evaluate the accuracy of its estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodologies and assumptions used;
  • enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected; and
  • minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, such as permitting electronic submission of responses.
Comments must be submitted on or before the day the notification of the PBGC’s intent to make its request is published in the Federal Register, which is to be Sept. 1, 2020.
 
Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:
 
  • The federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
  • By email to: [email protected]; Refer to “Missing Participants” and/or OMBControl No. 1212-0069 in the subject line.
  • By mail or hand delivery to: Regulatory Affairs Division, Office of the General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 1200 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005–4026.
All submissions received must include the agency’s name (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or PBGC) and refer to Missing Participants and/or OMB Control No. 1212-0069.