U.S. Department of Labor Provides Compliance Assistance Resources To Secure Employee Benefits

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has developed compliance assistance resources to help protect employee benefits. EBSA's goal is to help workers by restoring plan assets and securing the payment of promised benefits, and to help employee benefit officials understand the law. These tools give employee benefit plans the ability to self-correct violations, and further the goals of the Department's recently announced Office of Compliance Initiatives (OCI) to encourage and facilitate compliance.

• The Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program explains what corrective action is required and provides a mechanism for relief from enforcement actions and excise taxes under the Internal Revenue Code for 19 separate categories of fiduciary violations.
• The Delinquent Filer Voluntary Correction Program explains the steps plan administrators who are filing overdue mandatory annual reports can take to avoid higher civil penalty assessments.

Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, fiduciaries are responsible for operating employee benefit plans solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries. EBSA's mission is to assure the security of the retirement, health and other workplace related benefits of America's workers and their families.  For more information, visit dol.gov/agencies/ebsa.

OCI – housed within the Department of Labor's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy – fosters a compliance assistance culture within the Department designed to complement its ongoing enforcement efforts. This Office focuses on helping enforcement agencies more effectively use online resources to deliver information and compliance assistance to help the American people. In August 2018, OCI launched Worker.gov and Employer.gov to provide information about workers' rights and the responsibilities of job creators toward their workers.