As required by Section 101(l) of ERISA, at an employer’s written request, once during any 12-month period, the Fund will provide an employer with a notice of the estimated amount of the employer’s withdrawal liability if the employer withdrew on the last day of the plan year preceding the date of the request. Upon written request, the employer also will be provided an explanation of how the estimated withdrawal liability was determined, including the actuarial assumptions and methods used to determine the value of the plan liabilities and assets, the data used in making the estimate, and the application of any relevant limits on the estimated liability amount.
Because the plan year runs on a calendar year basis (i.e., from January 1 to December 31), this estimate will be made as if the employer had withdrawn on the December 31 immediately preceding the request. This estimate will be provided within the time period required by law (currently 180 days of the request).
Since this information will be of limited utility to employers (because it only applies to withdrawals in a plan year that already ended), an employer can instead request in writing that the Fund provide (subject to the same conditions) the estimated amount of the employer’s withdrawal liability if the employer withdrew in the current plan year. In that case, the Fund will provide one as soon as it reasonably can after the necessary information is available.
The Fund Office will provide these withdrawal liability estimates to an employer that makes a written request and that identifies any entities that are within the same “controlled group” (because all such entities must be treated as one employer for purposes of calculating the liability), and pays the Fund’s fee for such estimate. In this regard, the Directors will impose a charge to cover copying, mailing, and other costs of furnishing withdrawal liability estimates. Currently, the charge for such estimates is a flat fee of $2,000.