The Washington Report
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April 24, 2019
Legislative
Congress on Spring Recess
Congress left for spring recess on April 11, 2019, and is scheduled to return the week of April 29.
Health
CMS Releases Final Regulations on 2020 Benefit and Payment Parameters
On April 18, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released final regulations that establish the payment parameters and provisions related to the risk-adjustment and risk-adjustment data validation programs, cost-sharing parameters, and user fees for federally facilitated Exchanges and state-based Exchanges on the federal platform as part of the Affordable Care Act. The regulations finalize changes that will allow greater flexibility related to the duties and training requirements for the Navigator program and changes that will provide greater flexibility for direct enrollment entities, while strengthening program integrity oversight over those entities. The regulations finalize a change intended to reduce the costs of prescription drugs and also include changes to Exchange standards related to eligibility and enrollment, exemptions, and other related topics. The final regulations are effective June 24, 2019.
The final regulations are temporarily available here.
(The final regulations will be published in the April 25, 2019, Federal Register.)
The news release is available here.
A fact sheet is available here.
Retirement
IRS Publishes Revenue Procedure Revising Previous EPCRS Guidance
On April 19, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published Revenue Procedure 2019-19, which sets forth the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS). Revenue Procedure 2019-19 modifies and supersedes Revenue Procedure 2018-52, primarily to expand certain failures subject to self-correction. EPCRS provides a comprehensive system of correction programs administered by the Employee Plans Division of the IRS for sponsors of retirement plans that have failed to satisfy certain requirements under Sections 401(a), 403(a), 403(b), 408(k), or 408(p) of the Code.EPCRS generally provides the process to correct these failures and includes the Self-Correction Program (SCP), the Voluntary Correction Program, and the Audit Closing Agreement Program. Under the SCP, a plan sponsor that has established compliance practices and procedures may self-correct certain plan failures without submitting the correction to the IRS for approval and without paying any fee or sanction to the IRS.
Revenue Procedure 2019-19 is a limited update that revises the previous guidance to expand the use of the SCP to permit correction of certain plan document failures and certain plan loan failures, including the ability to correct defaulted plan loans, the failure to obtain spousal consent on a plan loan, and the failure of permitting plan loans that exceed the number of plan loans permitted under the terms of the plan. It also provides an additional method of correcting operational failures by plan amendment under SCP.
Revenue Procedure 2019-19 is available here.