You've Heard of "Training" the "Trainer".
What About "Auditing" the "Auditor"?
That's a New One!

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ARE YOU PREPARED?
The Department of Labor (DOL) recently introduced an initiative that impacts accounting firms who perform audits for qualified retirement plans.

Understanding the audit process and the DOL initiative is imperative to employers in making business decisions regarding qualified retirement plans. Under the new DOL initiative, accounting firms are being subpoenaed to provide copies of all management letters to the DOL where any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses may have occurred. This means that what may have been intended as confidential communications between an accounting firm and an employer, will now be shared with the DOL.

Employers must carefully review the letters provided to management and respond to the issues at hand. If employers understand that management letters will be disclosed to the DOL, they will be encouraged to consider the IRS and DOL programs to correct administrative errors. Under the voluntary compliance program, insignificant errors may be fixed at any point in time. Significant errors may be corrected by the end of the second plan year following the year in which the error occurs. Thus, an error made in January 2009 can be corrected by Dec. 31, 2011, for a calendar year plan without any IRS filing. Significant errors that are more than two years old may be corrected under the voluntary compliance program by filing an application with the IRS and paying the applicable user fee.

If you would like more details about the Patient Protection Act please do not hesitate to call your WISS & Company LLP partner or email us at info@wiss.com.