On December 3, 2015, the President signed into law the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (the “FAST Act”) which provides for five years of funding for highway projects.  If you just skimmed the news on this one, you may not have noticed that the FAST Act included a repeal of the extension to the Form 5500 filing deadline that was provided under the stop-gap Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 that was passed in August.

As we reported in our previous blog post, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 provided that, beginning in 2016, the automatic extension for the Form 5500 would be extended from 2½ months to 3½ months from the initial deadline.  Calendar year plans would be allowed to file as late as November 15^th.

In response to a luke-warm reception to the extended deadline (which was apparently viewed by many as serving only to prolong misery), the FAST Act provides that the old October 15^th automatic extension deadline has been restored.

Don’t get tripped up by this legislative game of “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t.”  As we embark on the new year, mark your calendars for October 15^th as the automatic extension due date for filing Form 5500.