IRS Pilot Survey of Public Pension Plans
February 20, 2009

The Internal Revenue Service has initiated its long anticipated pilot survey of a small group of public plans to determine whether the public fund community is "underserved" by the IRS. The Service expects that it will study the results and then issue a new survey to a larger audience, possibly as large as the entire public plan community. NCPERS has argued that the questions the Service is asking go far outside of its purview, and that IRS oversight of public funds is unnecessary and an arrogation of the rights and duties of state and local governments. Additionally, many of the answers to the questions asked in the survey can easily be obtained by contacting NCPERS or other governmental and pension organizations.

The survey can be viewed by clicking here. Comments on the survey may be submitted to governmentalplansdialogue@irs.gov by May 19, 2009.

It’s believed that due to privacy concerns the Service will not make public the identities of the 25 plans it is contacting in the pilot survey. However, we are asking that any public plan contacted by the IRS for this survey to please contact NCPERS Executive Director Hank Kim at (202) 624-1456.