WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service last week proposed a standardized process for moving retirement savings between employer plans and individual retirement accounts, seeking to reduce administrative friction that can leave workers coordinating transfers themselves or handling paper checks.
Notice 2026-49 implements Section 324 of the SECURE 2.0 Act, which directed Treasury to develop sample forms, procedures and protocols to simplify and expedite rollovers. The guidance applies to direct rollovers to or from an employer retirement plan, including transactions involving an IRA, but does not cover IRA-to-IRA rollovers or transfers.
The proposal addresses a process that federal reviews have repeatedly found to be fragmented. Treasury cited Government Accountability Office findings that retirement plans lack uniform procedures for verifying and completing rollovers, creating confusion and placing much of the administrative burden on participants.
A 2024 GAO report cited by Treasury found that nearly one-third of surveyed participants received paper checks that they then had to forward to the receiving retirement plan. Treasury and IRS stakeholders similarly reported that paper checks remain common and that the existing process lacks efficiency, consistency and uniformity.
Under the proposed framework, retirement plans would use standardized information and coordinate directly with each other. Each transfer would receive a unique rollover identification number, or RIN, designed to reduce the amount of personally identifying information exchanged between plans. Electronic communications would be used to the maximum extent possible.
The sample process consists of four forms and five steps. A participant would first submit a rollover request to the receiving plan, which would then contact the distributing plan. The distributing plan would verify the request and certify the account information, the receiving plan would approve a transfer method, and the distributing plan would complete the transfer.
“The sample forms will make compliance simpler and easier for both plan participants and administrators,” IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano stated in the agency’s release.
The forms are optional, and Treasury and the IRS are not currently offering regulatory safe harbors to plans that use them. Plans may modify the forms and incorporate the procedures into application programming interfaces, clearinghouses or other electronic platforms.
Treasury is also considering more consequential changes that could further reduce the role of paper checks. Future guidance could require electronic transfers or, when checks are necessary, require them to be sent directly to the receiving plan rather than through the participant. Regulators are also considering safe harbors tied to standardized forms and restrictions on administrative requirements deemed unnecessarily burdensome.
Under the sample procedures, if electronic transfer is unavailable, a check would be made payable to the receiving plan for the participant’s benefit and sent directly to that plan.
Treasury and the IRS acknowledged that broader electronic-transfer requirements could require retirement plan administrators and trustees to build or modify infrastructure, and indicated that any such mandate would allow time for implementation.
Comments on the sample forms, proposed procedures and potential additional guidance are due Oct. 23, 2026. Treasury is specifically seeking feedback on technology standards and automated systems that could further reduce administrative burdens and costs for retirement savers.
Support the local news that supports Chester County. MyChesCo delivers reliable, fact-based reporting and essential community resources—free for everyone. If you value that, click here to become a patron today.