To satisfy new requirements, the U.S. Department of Labor has published an interim final rule that provides inflation adjustments to monetary penalties for violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
According to the agency, in 1990, the Federal Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act required federal agencies to adjust civil monetary penalties for inflation; subsequent amendments enacted in 2015 updated those requirements, including one for “catch-up” adjustments through October of 2015.
The rule just issued by Labor Department provides those catch-up adjustments for penalties enforced by the various agencies in the Labor Department, including the Employee Benefits Security Administration. The catch-up adjustments apply to penalties assessed after Aug. 1, 2016, for violations that occurred after Nov. 2, 2015, the date of the 2015 Inflation Adjustment Act.
ERISA Title I violations that occurred on or before Nov. 2, 2015, and assessments made on or before Aug. 1, 2016, for violations occurring after Nov. 2, 2015, will continue to be subject to the civil monetary penalty amounts in the department’s existing regulations in 29 CFR part 2575, or as established by statute if the penalty amount was never adjusted by regulation.
Beginning in 2017, the Labor Department will adjust the new ERISA Title I penalty amounts annually for inflation no later than Jan. 15. For example, by Jan. 15, 2017, the Labor Department will adjust penalty amounts to reflect any increase in inflation from October 2015, to October 2016. The Employee Benefits Security Administrationwill post any changes to ERISA Title I penalty amounts on its website. Annual inflation adjustments are not subject to notice and rulemaking.
Those adjustments are quite a jump. Failure to furnish pension benefit statements, for instance, to former participants or beneficiaries will go from the current level of up to $11 per employee to up to $28 per employee, while failures to file annual reports will rise from the current penalty of up to $1,100 per day to up to $2,063 per day.
Not all the penalties have risen by such a large margin, but they will doubtless serve as incentive not to incur them.
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