About the Study

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) and funded contractor Summit Consulting to conduct the Form 5500 Filing Patterns Analysis under the Administrative Data Research and Analysis portfolio of studies. The statistical analyses aim to better understand why employee benefit plans stop filing Form 5500s. Researchers used data from 2000 to 2016 to conduct two filing pattern-related analyses. The first analysis that researchers conducted analyzed the Form 5500 population to identify whether plans with the same filing pattern have similar characteristics. The second analysis examined the effectiveness of EBSA’s Stop-Filer Initiative on filing compliance by observing the impact of enforcement correspondence on filing behavior between treatment and control groups of plans delinquent in submitting Form 5500. EBSA initiated the 2015 Stop-Filer Initiative to systematically collect and assess information on the reasons that a plan administrator stopped filing Form 5500.

Each year, employee benefit plan administrators are required to submit Form 5500 to report important information about the plan―including plan type, administration, and benefits―to EBSA. EBSA receives over 200,000 Form 5500 filings per year during the study period. Timely filing of Form 5500 protects plan participants’ rights and benefits, and data from the form directly enhances assessments of tax and employee benefit-related economic trends and policies.

This Department of Labor-funded study was a result of the annual process to determine the department’s research priorities for the upcoming year. It contributes to the labor evidence-base to inform data and reporting programs and policies and addresses departmental strategic goals and priorities.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.