On Oct. 22, 2026, the Treasury Department and the IRS announced the IRA Compliance Resolution System, or ICRS, a formal process for asking the agency to correct certain individual retirement account errors. It takes effect May 1, 2027.
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 called for the program. Not every mistake qualifies. The IRS charges a fee to use it, and the only route is to request it from the agency itself.
The four mistakes it covers
Revenue Procedure 2026-33 lists four eligible failures.
Three involve an error by a service provider, such as a bank or brokerage acting as custodian:
- A required minimum distribution, or RMD, that came out smaller than it should have
- An IRA opened as the wrong type of account, or as something other than an IRA
- An inherited IRA where a nonspouse beneficiary received a distribution or rollover instead of a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer
The fourth is a missed 60-day rollover deadline. That one does not require a provider error, but the IRS must find that a waiver would be consistent with equity or good conscience.
The failure must also be inadvertent. Egregious failures, diversion or misuse of IRA assets and abusive tax avoidance transactions are excluded. The owner must be current on tax filings and generally cannot be under examination.
There is no self-correction option, so every fix goes through the IRS.
A $3,500 fee, and a start date months away
For standard submissions filed before Jan. 1, 2028, the IRS user fee is $3,500. Fees after that will be set in a later revenue procedure.
The procedure says the IRS may waive the excise tax on a missed RMD and may decline to pursue the 10% additional tax on early distributions in appropriate cases. The agency is taking public comments through Jan. 20, 2027, so details could change.
Nothing in the new program applies before May 1, 2027, and the existing free route stays open after that date: Withdraw the shortfall and file Form 5329 with a note asking for relief.
Rollover waivers shift to the new system
Until ICRS takes effect, anyone who misses the 60-day rollover deadline and needs the IRS itself to grant a waiver must request a private letter ruling. The new procedure moves those requests into ICRS.
In 2027, taxpayers can use either route. Starting in 2028, the IRS expects to accept requests only through ICRS.
Two free options remain. Automatic waivers stay available at no cost. So does self-certification, which lets an owner give the receiving custodian a signed letter citing one of 12 qualifying reasons, such as a bank error, a misplaced check, a serious illness or a death in the family.
The contribution generally must be made within 30 days after the reason stops preventing the rollover.
A self-certification is not an IRS waiver. If the agency examines the return and finds the conditions were not met, the owner could owe tax, interest and penalties. It also cannot be used for RMDs or for distributions to nonspouse beneficiaries.
A second set of eyes before the deadline
Most of these errors start with a detail on a statement: the account type, the amount withdrawn, and how inherited money moved. Anyone who turned 73 in 2026 also has a first RMD that can wait until April 1, 2027, which adds a second date to track.
If you have $100,000 or more in investments, you can have a fiduciary advisor review those details, along with rollovers and withdrawals, while it’s still cheap to avoid a mistake. Fiduciaries are legally required to put your interests first. SmartAsset matches readers with up to three of them at no cost.
The questionnaire takes about 10 minutes, includes about 37 questions and asks for a phone number near the end. You control whether and when you respond to anyone.
The deadline for most 2026 RMDs is Dec. 31, which arrives months before the new program does.
Add a Comment