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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.
Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR
ANNUAL PENSION AND OTHER WELFARE PLAN REPORTS TO
BE MORE ACCESSIBLE WITH TECHNOLOGICAL UPDATE
Wed., Sept. 27, 1995
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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.
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