Treasury, IRS provide new safe harbor explanations for retirement plan administrators

IR-2026-08, Jan 15, 2026

WASHINGTON - The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service today issued guidance for certain retirement plan administrators, updating safe harbor explanations to reflect tax law changes made after Aug. 6, 2020.

Notice 2026-13 PDFissued today provides safe harbor explanations that may be used by plan administrators when they provide written explanations to retirement plan participants about eligible rollover distributions, satisfying their requirements under section 402(f). In the notice, the first safe harbor explanation applies to non-Roth accounts and the second safe harbor explanation applies to Roth accounts.

The notice also addresses, among other things, changes to the 10% additional tax on early withdrawals from retirement plans, the required minimum distribution rules for surviving spouses, and the increased age for determining required beginning dates for required minimum distributions.

Plan administrators may customize these safe harbor explanations as appropriate. For instance, if the plan does not hold after-tax employee contributions, the plan administrator could eliminate that section of the safe harbor explanation.

Today's guidance modifies the safe harbor explanations previously provided in Notice 2020-62 PDF.