Hello, I’m Ann Junkins, and I have news for you about filing your one-participant plan return electronically.

Retirement plans that cover only a business owner and his or her spouse are called “one-participant plans.”  One-participant plan sponsors can choose between two ways of filing required annual returns.

One way is to file an electronic Form 5500-SF with the Department of Labor’s EFAST2 system. The other way is to file a paper Form 5500-EZ, mailed to the IRS.

We would like to encourage all one-participant plan filers to choose the electronic filing option. Electronic filing makes the process easier for the filer and increases data accuracy.

To help encourage electronic filing, beginning January 1, 2012, your one-participant plan filings will not be made available to the public through the EFAST2 Filing Search Application. While the information contained in the filing remains publicly disclosable, it will be excluded from online access. We hope that one-participant plan filers will now submit their returns electronically through EFAST2 using the Form 5500-SF.

If you have any questions on one-participant plans, please visit the Form 5500 Corner at www.irs.gov/retirement.