The Treasury Department and the IRS announced October 22 that they have established a correction program for individual retirement accounts, to take effect May 1, 2027. It lets IRA custodians and owners ask the IRS to fix certain mistakes. The agency also updated its long-running correction program for employer retirement plans, effective the same day.
What the new IRA program fixes
The IRS announcement covers two revenue procedures. Revenue Procedure 2026-33 creates the IRA Compliance Resolution System, or ICRS, modeled on the older employer-plan system. Congress ordered it in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, and the IRS says it covers certain inadvertent failures caused by service-provider errors.
The procedure lists four correctable failures. One is a required minimum distribution that comes up short because a service provider erred. The others are an IRA set up as the wrong type or as a non-IRA account, a nonspouse beneficiary taxed after a provider’s inadvertent error, and a missed 60-day rollover where a waiver is equitable.
Either the IRA custodian or the IRA owner can apply, but a missed 60-day rollover must come from the owner. Owners must be current on their tax filings and generally cannot be under examination. Egregious failures, diversion or misuse of IRA assets and abusive tax avoidance transactions are excluded.
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Fees, the start date and the comment window
Nothing opens yet. Revenue Procedure 2026-33 takes effect May 1, 2027. Treasury and the IRS are taking comments on both programs, and the comments on the IRA procedure are due January 20, 2027, filed at regulations.gov under docket IRS-2026-1387.
For submissions before January 1, 2028, a regular filing costs $3,500. A group filing by a custodian costs $10,000 for the first 10 IRA owners plus $250 for each additional owner, capped at $50,000, and it requires a systemic failure affecting at least 10 owners and 10 IRAs. Later fees are set in another revenue procedure.
The new system starts narrow. It consists only of a voluntary correction program, and the text states that self-correction of IRA failures is not available “at this time.” Paper submissions are not accepted, so filings will go in electronically.
What changes for a missed 60-day rollover
Today, an IRA or plan owner has 60 days from receiving a distribution to roll it over. The IRS rollover FAQ says a missed deadline generally makes the money taxable and may add the 10% additional tax. It lists three routes to relief: an automatic waiver, a private letter ruling or self-certification.
The private letter ruling carries a $10,000 user fee, the FAQ says. Self-certification has no IRS fee, but the FAQ states it is not a waiver by the IRS, the receiving institution does not have to accept the late rollover, and an audit can still turn up taxes and penalties if the owner did not qualify.
The release says requests now handled as private letter rulings will move into ICRS over 2027 and 2028. During 2027 an owner may use either route, and from 2028 waivers are expected only through ICRS. Automatic waivers and self-certification stay available at no cost under existing revenue procedures.
A waiver lets the owner deposit no more than the original distribution, and the one-IRA-to-IRA-rollover-per-year limit still applies. The IRS weighs financial institution errors, death, disability or similar events, what the owner did with the money, and how much time has passed. A provider error is not required for this kind of failure.
The update to the employer plan program
Revenue Procedure 2026-34 modifies and supersedes the 2021 version of the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System, effective October 22, 2026. That system has three programs: self-correction, a voluntary program with an IRS filing, and an audit program. It applies to qualified plans, 403(b) plans, SEP arrangements and SIMPLE IRA plans.
Self-correction grows. It now covers “eligible inadvertent failures,” including certain loan failures and certain demographic, employer eligibility and plan document failures. Qualified plans and 403(b) plans no longer need a favorable determination letter to use it, and a timing safe harbor treats a fix as timely if finished by a set deadline.
Other changes include a deferral-failure correction method without a qualified nonelective contribution, reinstated with no sunset and extended to SEP and SIMPLE IRA plans. Corrective payments are generally not required for inadvertent benefit overpayments, and certain overpayments of $250 or less are exempt from recoupment.
IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said the procedures help “make complying with the nation’s tax laws easier and less burdensome for taxpayers.” Plan sponsors, not individual savers, file under the employer program, so most individuals will meet these rules only through a custodian or employer.
The IRS keeps both revenue procedures and its correction guidance on its retirement plans page. Until May 1, 2027, an IRA owner hit by a provider’s mistake still has the existing routes, including the rollover waivers described above.
Is the required IRA withdrawal on track for this year?
The new program fixes a missed minimum distribution only when a service provider’s error caused it, and a regular filing costs $3,500 once it starts in 2027. The IRA correction program handles mistakes after the fact, so the related question is how to plan withdrawals before one happens.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner includes four calculators (provisional income, IRMAA tier, RMD schedule, Roth bracket fill) and the account withdrawal order for drawing down savings. Its RMD schedule calculator gives a yearly figure to compare against what a custodian reports.
Map IRA withdrawals with the RMD schedule calculator and withdrawal-order planner →
More Financial Reading
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- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 17 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
