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Responding to a mandate under 2022’s SECURE 2.0 retirement savings law, the IRS recently published four sample forms for rollovers to eligible retirement plans and trustee-to-trustee transfers from individual retirement plans. Notice 2026-49 (PDF - 364.08KB), issued Aug. 12, includes a package of four standardized sample rollover forms and a five-step procedure to simplify direct rollovers.
The direct rollover process for qualified plans under Section 401(a) is governed principally by Section 401(a)(31), which conditions a plan’s qualified status on a provision requiring that where a distributee elects to have an eligible rollover distribution paid directly to an eligible retirement plan, the distribution must be made as a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer. While a distribution is generally a taxable event, Section 402(c)(1) excludes from gross income any portion of an eligible rollover distribution transferred into an eligible retirement plan. Comparable rollover mechanics extend to 403(b) plans and governmental 457(b) plans through parallel tax code provisions.
Congress directed the IRS, under Section 324 of the SECURE 2.0 Act, to develop and issue sample forms, procedures and protocols to simplify, standardize, facilitate and expedite rollovers to eligible retirement plans and trustee-to-trustee transfers from individual retirement plans.
The mandate followed criticism from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), including a 2013 GAO report finding the rollover process structurally inefficient due to the absence of uniform verification and completion requirements across plans, and a 2024 report finding that nearly one-third of participants still received paper distribution checks that they were required to personally forward to the receiving plan or IRA. The GAO said the use of paper checks created a risk of delay, loss and lost investment earnings during the transfer.
This month’s notice introduces four sample forms:
- A Participant Rollover Request
- A Receiving Plan Request to the Distributing Plan
- A Distributing Plan Rollover Certification
- A Receiving Plan Rollover Acceptance
The forms are linked together by a Rollover Identification Number (RIN) that protects participant personally identifiable information across the transaction.
The IRS encourages administrators and trustees to program the sample forms into their respective electronic platforms for ease of use. However, the IRS has not made electronic programming of the sample forms mandatory, recognizing that not all administrators or trustees are equipped with the technology necessary to implement the forms electronically.
There is no mandatory effective date for using the sample rollover forms. Taxpayers may use the sample forms and procedures immediately.
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