2022 Form 5500 Series Informational Copies Released

The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the IRS, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) jointly released the 2022 Form 5500, Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan, and the 2022 Form 5500-SF, Short Form Annual Return/Report of Small Employee Benefit Plan, and their respective instructions and schedules.

In an accompanying news release, EBSA reminds filers that these are informational copies of the Form 5500 series and cannot be used for filing. The news release and accompanying instructions highlight the following changes for 2022:

  • For multiple-employer plans, new plan characteristic codes have been added to identify pooled employer plans, association retirement plans, PEO multiple-employer plans, and other multiple-employer plans.
  • Updated instructions to reflect the cost-of-living adjustment increase of the civil filing penalty from $2,259 to $2,400.
  • Revised the instructions for Schedule MB relating to multiemployer defined benefit plans and certain money purchase plan actuarial information.
  • Revised Schedule R to require plans to report identifying information about any participating employer who either contributed more than five percent of the plan’s total contributions or was one of the top-ten highest contributors.
  • Revised Schedule SB for single employer defined benefit plan actuarial information to require an attachment of a projection of expected benefit payments and require filers to indicate the first plan year that the extended amortization rule was applied under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

The news release further explains EBSA is “modernizing” the EFAST2 website and that the existing EFAST2 user ID and password log-in process is being phased out. Beginning January 1, 2023, EFAST2 will begin using the unified Login.gov single sign-on process for U.S. government websites. Existing EFAST2 users will have until September 1, 2023, to transition their log-in.