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Archived News Release Caution: Information may be out of date. Archived News Release Caution: Information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219- 8921.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Pension and Welfare
Benefits Administration (PWBA) is about to install a state-of-the-art optical
imaging and retrieval system to improve its public disclosure operation. The
system will be used primarily to make the Form 5500 annual pension and welfare
plan reports with attachments more user-friendly.
The new system promises to cut down the retrieval time for
lengthy annual reports containing accountant statements that are required to be
filed with the Internal Revenue Service and PWBA. The system will allow PWBA's
public disclosure users to view more readable full-page copies of these reports
on a computer screen. This will be possible through the acquisition of new
computers which feature high resolution, 21-inch color monitors and Pentium
processors. Printouts of these annual reports will be available for a small
fee.
The change does not involve Form 5500-C and -R annual
reports, normally filed by plans with 100 or fewer participants, or Form 5500
annual reports filed without attachments. These reports will continue to be
available via electronic facsimile. Form 5500s with attachments are expected to
be accessible through the new system by January 1996. Until then, only
facsimile copies of the data entered on the form (without attachments) will be
available as these forms are filed. Copies are available through the PWBA
Public Disclosure Facility, Room N5638, Frances Perkins Building at Second
Street and Constitution Streets N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210.
Requests for the Form 5500s with attachments will be
subject to PWBA's ability to extract completed 5500 reports for the 1994 plan
year from the IRS. Normally these reports would not be available to PWBA from
the IRS until January or February.
The need to improve the delivery system for the Form 5500
annual reports with attachments was necessary because the agency has found that
the newly installed optical imaging and retrieval system will enable PWBA to
provide better and more cost-efficient services than the current microfiche
operations.
Archived News Release Caution: Information may be out of date.
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