Plans, Perks & Pay | Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog

At the beginning of this year, we wrote about changing standards applicable to audits of financial statements of employee benefit plans subject to ERISA. Specifically, we explained that the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued new standards for what are currently known as “limited-scope audits.” Initially, the changed audit standards were effective for plan years ending on or after December 15, 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the AICPA delayed the implementation of the standards to audits of plan years ending on or after December 15, 2021. We want to remind plan sponsors of employee benefit plans required to include an auditor’s report as part an annual Form 5500 filing that the changed audit standards create new responsibilities for plan sponsors in 2022.