BarbriSFCourseDetails
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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

    Intermediate

  • work Practice Area

    Accounting

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Tuesday, March 23, 2021

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    110 minutes

Credit Information

  • BARBRI is a NASBA CPE sponsor and this 110-minute webinar is accredited for 2.0 CPE credits.

$197.00
CPE
ALL

This course will provide employee benefit plan auditors with best practices and the proper procedures to remedy serious and costly (but all too common) benefit plan errors through available IRS and DOL retirement plan correction programs. The panel will explain the processes and potential pitfalls that practitioners often encounter in correcting plan mistakes and outline how to address these issues based on real-world experiences.

Faculty

Christopher Ciminera
Principal, Accounting & Auditing
Belfint Lyons & Shuman, PA

Mr. Ciminera is a member of the firm’s Employee Benefit Plan niche in the accounting and auditing services department where he specializes in auditing employee benefit plans of for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental entities. He also specializes in Form 5500 preparation. When necessary, Mr. Ciminera helps clients navigate and prepare filings for corrections of plan errors or late filings through the DOL Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program, IRS Voluntary Correction Program, and DOL Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program.

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Kathleen R. Barrow
Partner
Fox Rothschild LLP

Ms. Barrow has nearly three decades of experience helping employers correct tax and fiduciary issues with payroll, executive compensation and employee benefits. Her national practice includes strategic assistance with ERISA matters, compliance programs, and corrections of documentation and operational errors. Ms. Barrow’s clients include employers across a range of industries, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers and school districts. She has handled cases that involve the U.S. Treasury Office of Tax Policy; the Department of Labor, Employee Benefit Security Administration; massive payroll corrections involving thousands of employees; and has led representation before the U.S. Tax Court, various U.S. district courts and courts of appeals throughout the country.

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Description

Identifying an operational error during the plan audit is usually only the first step. As a valued service provider, your client generally will request your help to correct operational failures identified during the audit. To be able to appropriately guide them through the correction and to keep the plan in compliance, you must stay on top of the IRS's and DOL's ever-changing rules and regulations and understand the available options to correct mistakes once they are discovered.

To appropriately assess risk in the audit and help correct identified errors, employee benefit plan auditors and advisers must understand the most prevalent errors and have familiarity with the government's compliance programs. Our panel will explain how you can provide additional value to your client by helping identify and correct errors in their retirement plan operations--before an IRS audit or DOL investigation occurs.

Our panel will elaborate on the available options to fix plan errors. The panel's insights will help you identify common errors and effectively collaborate with service providers, potentially including ERISA counsel, to present the client with the available correction options for their consideration. The program will help you gain an understanding of different types of corrective actions under the IRS's Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) and the DOL's Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance (DFVC) and Voluntary Fiduciary Correction (VFC) programs.

Listen as our panel offers insights based on real world experience for remedying high risk mistakes commonly identified during benefit plan audits. The panel will also outline approaches to correct plan errors before an audit or after a filing.

Outline

  1. Correction programs
    1. DOL
      1. Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program
      2. Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program
    2. IRS
      1. Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System
      2. Self-Correction Program
      3. Voluntary Correction Program
      4. Other
  2. Errors
    1. Common plan operation errors
    2. Other errors
  3. How to fix common errors
  4. Best practices

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • Selecting the best correction option available through the IRS EPCRS
  • Effectively making use of the DOL's DFVC and VFC programs
  • Anticipating and tackling potential program pitfalls
  • Best practices for preventing or detecting common errors

NASBA Details

Learning Objectives

After completing this program, you will be able to:

  • Identify common errors in employee benefit plans
  • Identify correction programs available to correct errors through the IRS and DOL
  • Identify the appropriate programs to use for common errors uncovered in employee benefit plan audits

  • Field of Study: Accounting
  • Level of Knowledge: Intermediate
  • Advance Preparation: None
  • Teaching Method: Seminar/Lecture
  • Delivery Method: Group-Internet (via computer)
  • Attendance Monitoring Method: Attendance is monitored electronically via a participant's PIN and through a series of attendance verification prompts displayed throughout the program
  • Prerequisite: Three years+ business or public firm experience at mid-level within the organization, preparing, reporting and auditing employee benefit plans as well as supervising other preparers/accountants. Specific knowledge and understanding of IRS regulations and guidance for employee benefit plan reporting and audits and the available IRS and DOL voluntary correction programs; familiarity identifying common and high-risk errors in employee benefit plans and knowledge of potential IRS penalties.

Strafford Publications, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of Accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE Credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsons may be submitted to NASBA through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.