Over this past summer, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 (the "Surface Transportation Act") included a provision that extended by a month the automatic extension that is available to Form 5500-series filers, to be effective with the filing of the 2016 returns. (See our Legal Alert dated September 9, 2015.) Whether you appreciated it or not, that extension was short-lived, and has now been repealed before even taking effect.

Added to the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), which was passed and signed last week, was a provision repealing the Form 5500 filing extension that was enacted in the Surface Transportation Act. Interestingly, the repeal applies only to the extension that had been granted for Forms 5500; similar extensions that had been created for corporate, partnership, fiduciary and other tax returns remain in effect.

So, at least until someone changes their mind again, we are back to the same old Form 5500 filing deadlines. It's as if they were never changed.