Stop IRA Reporting Errors Before They Start
Tax reporting errors have a way of creating more work than you might expect.
An incorrect distribution code. A transfer reported as a rollover. An incorrect Social Security number. Any one of these mistakes can turn an otherwise routine reporting process into additional forms, client questions, and corrections.
And when an error involves a prior tax year, the process can become even more complicated. Depending on the correction, financial organizations may need to file one or two forms for each affected tax year and obtain the appropriate version of the form for that year.
There’s a better approach: catch potential reporting problems become they become correction problems.
That’s where Ascensus can help.
Accurate Reporting Starts Before the Forms Go Out
IRA tax reporting primarily centers on two forms.
Form 1099-R, Distributions From Pensions, Annuities, Retirement or Profit-Sharing Plans, IRAs, Insurance Contracts, etc., which reports IRA distributions, including withholding.
Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information, which reports regular contributions, the December 31 fair market value, rollover contributions, recharacterizations, and required minimum distributions (RMDs).
The challenge is ensuring that transactions and the related account information are reported correctly. Errors can be corrected. But wouldn’t it be better to prevent them?
Turn Compliance Expertise Into Your Advantage
Financial organizations don’t have to manage the complexities of IRA reporting alone.
Ascensus combines compliance expertise with technology designed to help identify and mitigate tax reporting errors before they create problems for your organization and your clients. Our goal is simple: to help you maintain compliance while reducing the uncertainty and administrative burden associated with tax reporting.
Through Ascensus’ Fully-Administered Program, financial organizations can receive support with tax reporting for IRAs, HSAs, and Coverdell ESAs.
Option 1: Process Transactions through IRAdirect®
Organizations can enter individual transactions into Ascensus’ secure online processing system, IRAdirect.
Built-in form wizard logic helps prevent incorrect information from being entered and guides users toward accurate transactions and reporting. That means your staff has an additional layer of compliance support working behind the scenes as transactions are processed.
Option 2: Send Ascensus Your Annual Transaction File
Prefer a different approach? Financial organizations can send Ascensus a file containing their annual transactions and let Ascensus handle the rest.
With either method, compliance logic is designed to catch common errors that might otherwise go unnoticed. Ascensus can also generate and mail tax forms to account owners, the IRS, and applicable state agencies.
Spend Less Time Fixing and More Time Serving
The total cost of a reporting error isn’t necessarily the mistake itself. It’s everything that may come afterward: researching what happened, finding the appropriate forms, making corrections, addressing client questions, and ensuring that updated information reaches the appropriate parties.
Preventing those problems can make tax reporting easier for your staff and your IRA owners.
With Ascensus as part of your back-office team, your organization gains access to compliance expertise and technology designed to help make reporting more accurate and manageable.
Because the best reporting correction may be the one you never have to make.
Ready to Simplify Your IRA Reporting Process?
Learn more about the Ascensus Fully-Administered Program, or email salessupport@ascensus.com to learn
