Senator urges Labor Department to extend ERISA filing deadlines

The Department of Labor should extend Employee Retirement Income Security Act filing deadlines for certain notice and disclosure requirements in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said.

In an April 2 letter to Preston Rutledge, assistant secretary of labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, Ms. Murray, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said the Labor Department should exercise its new authority provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and extend filing deadlines.

"This simple step would help plan administrators and record keepers across the country who are working under unusual and challenging circumstances by allowing them to prioritize the significant increase of requests and applications from families seeking help managing financial hardship over current filing deadlines," Ms. Murray said.

She urged the Labor Department to provide at least a 90-day extension for "certain ERISA notice and disclosure requirements" given the "foreseeable increase in hardship withdrawal and loan requests" due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In her letter, Ms. Murray did not specify the notice and disclosure requirements that should be granted filing extensions, but it did cite a March 23 letter from the SPARK Institute to the Labor Department, Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service that outlined some of the deadlines its members are facing, like the 60-day period for a rollover and the annual requirement to distribute excess deferrals by April 15 of the following year.

Ms. Murray added that record keepers and plan administrators are already "responding to increasing participant and beneficiary requests, which should be prioritized in these uncertain times."

A Labor Department spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.