What is the Employee Plans Office and What Does it Do? |
|
Employee Plans (EP) was created by law in 1974. That law - the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA - was passed by Congress and signed by President Gerald Ford to help protect the retirement benefits of active and retired employees.
The reason EP was created within the IRS was that retirement plans are the largest legal tax shelter in the country. Did you know that retirement plans - including IRAs, 401(k) plans and traditional retirement plans - contain more than $10 trillion in assets? That’s roughly equal to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Over 1 million plans provide retirement security for over 100 million participants.
It’s EP’s responsibility to ensure that retirement plans meet the requirements of the tax law, the Internal Revenue Code. And the tax law changes frequently. Since ERISA there have been more than 20 new laws affecting retirement plans: that’s an average of a new law 2 out of every 3 years.
EP has several branches or departments to help carry out the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President:
EP also has a Customer Account Services branch available to answer questions about retirement plans.
Together with the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (which was also created by ERISA), Employee Plans is there to administer the law on retirement plans. The EP motto: Partnering to Protect Retirement Benefits.
Further information on EP services is available in Publication 3636, Employee Plans brochure. You can also find more information, including links to different statistical surveys, on our "Employee Plans - A Closer Look" web page.
|
|
|
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: March 06, 2009