IRS Revises VCP Form and Updates Submission Procedures

The June issue of Employee Plans News includes updates to the VCP submission requirements applicable to 401(k) plans. Here are highlights:

• Revised VCP Form 8950: Penalty of Perjury Statement. On Form 8950, Application for Voluntary Correction Program (VCP), the penalty of perjury statement has been revised to clarify that authorized representatives submitting the application on an employer’s behalf are not signing the statement under penalty of perjury, but instead are certifying their status as reflected on Form 2848, Power of Attorney, which is a required part of the submission. The VCP submission must also include a penalty of perjury statement signed and dated by the plan sponsor.
• Technical Changes to VCP Submission Procedures. Employers and authorized plan representatives are now permitted to use the same Pay.gov username to submit multiple Forms 8950—including for different employers or plans. Similarly, the same Pay.gov username may be used to submit additional user fees for multiple open VCP submissions (using Form 8951, Additional User Fee Payment for Open Application for Voluntary Correction Program (VCP)) for different plans or clients of an authorized plan representative. In addition, applicants may now submit faxes up to 150MB (with a coversheet that includes the Pay.gov tracking ID number, applicant name and EIN, and plan name).

EBIA Comment: Now that VCP submissions may only be submitted electronically using the Pay.gov website, plan sponsors and advisors do not have to be concerned about submitting the correct Forms 8950 and 8951: the forms on the website are the correct (and only) permissible forms. The submission process has other technical requirements, however, which may change periodically, so VCP submitters will want to be sure they are not only satisfying the submission requirements under Revenue Procedure 2019-19 (see our Checkpoint article), but also the latest submission procedures detailed on the Pay.gov website. For more information, see EBIA’s 401(k) Plans manual at Section XXXV.E (“Voluntary Correction Program (VCP) With IRS Approval”).

Contributing Editors: EBIA Staff.