On March 19, 2015 the Department of Labor issued final rules that give retirement plan administrators a two-month window in which to provide annual fee disclosures to plan participants. Under existing regulations, plan administrators must provide fee disclosures to participants in plans with individually directed accounts at “at least once in any 12-month period, without regard to whether the plan operates on a calendar or fiscal year basis”. This 12-month rule presents some administrative difficulty because Plans that provide the disclosures in the same month every year could easily run afoul of the regulatory language if their disclosures are not done on the exact same day of the month each year.
The new rule replaces “12-month period” with “14-month period”, giving plan administrators a two month window each year in which to make the disclosures The new rules will become effective on June 17, 2015 (unless the DOL gets significant adverse comments on the rule, which is not expected). In the meantime, the DOL indicates that for enforcement purposes plan administrators can rely on the new rule immediately.
