Working with a plan sponsor recently, I was helping sort out a late Form 5500 issue. Pretty routine stuff, until I learned they’d already heard from the IRS about it a year ago. A year! It reminded me of my mother-in-law, who’d never tell you she was sick when it happened, but would casually drop the news six to twelve months later, like it was an afterthought. (“Oh, did I mention I had surgery last spring?”)
That kind of delayed disclosure doesn’t just cause family headaches, it causes plan headaches.
Your 401(k) provider, whether it’s a TPA, ERISA attorney, or recordkeeper, can’t fix what they don’t know. We’re not mind readers, and we don’t have a magic portal into your inbox. If the DOL or IRS sends you a letter, tell us. Immediately. The longer you sit on it, the worse the problem gets, and the fewer options we have to make it right.
Providers are supposed to be your retirement plan experts, but we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on. Silence is not a strategy. Communication is.
So next time you get a notice, an inquiry, or even a nagging sense that something might be off, loop in your plan team early. They’ll thank you, and you’ll avoid turning a fixable issue into a full-blown regulatory migraine.
Because in the 401(k) world, just like in family life, the sooner you talk about the problem, the easier it is to solve.
