The IRS ended 2023 with new guidance on the SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0. These included proposed regulations on the new requirements for long-term part-time employees and a grab-bag of Q&As on miscellaneous provisions of SECURE 2.0. Overall, the IRS guidance does not contain dramatic surprises—but it does help employers and their providers start planning for the next few years.

Since 1991 the IRS has had a program allowing plan sponsors to correct administrative errors and, over the years the IRS has expanded the availability of this program and the ability to “self-correct” errors without an IRS filing. SECURE 2.0 took this trend--of expanding the availability of self-correction--to the next level by directing the IRS to allow self-correction for a broad range of “inadvertent” errors. IRS Notice 2023-43 clarifies the rules for this expanded self-correction opportunity.