PBGC Requests to Seek Information on Roth Account Data and Foreign-Source Income

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has requested from the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) permission to continue collecting information on certain retirement plan missing participant accounts under the authority of the Paperwork Reduction Act. This information collection request (ICR) differs somewhat in that PBGC is asking the OMB for authority to modify the scope of information that the agency collects on missing participants.

Such ICRs are generally routine, and agency authority to request information from taxpayer sources generally must be renewed every three years. The agency is seeking to modify its existing ICR in the following ways.

• For retirement plans that have a designated Roth account (Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b)) feature—and a balance will be transferred to PBGC under its missing participant program—the agency seeks permission to require a breakdown of both qualified and not-yet-qualified (earnings not yet tax-free) Roth account amounts, and the date that the first designated Roth account contribution was made.
• For defined benefit and defined contribution qualified retirement plan accounts transferred to PBGC, the ICR would require the identification of any amount that would, under U.S. tax laws, be treated as foreign-source income and—for defined benefit plans—how that determination was made.