By Barry Salkin and Jon Schultze
The United States Postal Service (“USPS”) recently made a regulatory change that impacts when a piece of mail is considered to have been accepted by the USPS. This change may affect certain employee benefit (and other) filings, and administrators will need to be aware of the new rules to ensure they are compliant.
Section 7502 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (“Code”) contains a rule for establishing the date on which a tax return is timely filed. Commonly referred to as the “mailbox rule” (which either replaced or supplemented the common law rule of physical delivery), a return is treated as timely filed if a properly addressed return is postmarked on or before the due date for filing a return. That shorthand reference to the Code provision may endure, but on December 24, 2025, the USPS limited its scope. On that date, rules regarding postmark dates were clarified in a way that most plan administrators and other plan fiduciaries will likely not have known about.
In Regulation 608.111, Postmarks and Postal Possession, the USPS confirmed that the date inscribed by the USPS on a mail piece to reflect its processing does not necessarily coincide with the date on which the USPS accepted possession of the mail piece. Instead, the date of a machine-applied postmark represents the date of the first automated processing operation performed at a USPS facility, which may be days after the USPS took physical possession of the mail piece.
For correspondence, forms and returns that can be filed electronically, the USPS’s recent action will not have any effect on benefit plan administration. But electronic filing will not always be an available alternative. For example, indirect rollovers to an IRA trustee or custodian must be effected within 60 days; COBRA notices and payments are tied to postmark dates; and plan contributions by check need to be made by a statutory deadline.
Plan administrators and service providers will need to take steps to avoid missing a statutory or regulatory deadline. Filing a return or taking the otherwise required action a week earlier could avoid problems, but there should be a backup plan in the event the early filing option cannot be implemented. Alternatives to merely dropping off a filing at the post office would be obtaining a manual postmark, purchasing a certificate of mailing, or using certified or registered mail. These options may be impractical for bulk mailings, but they are options that may be considered in certain situations.
Plan administrators and other plan fiduciaries, as well as plan participants and others involved in the administration of employee benefit plans, should be mindful of this new USPS rule when engaging in time-sensitive activities. Current practices and procedures should be reviewed to ensure that they take into account the new USPS timing rule. Failures to meet deadlines could result in serious consequences, which proper planning can help avoid. The Wagner Law Group would be happy to provide guidance on these requirements.
