---
kind: "section"
citation: "29 U.S.C. § 1202a"
title: "29"
title_heading: "Labor"
number: "1202a"
heading: "Employee plans compliance resolution system"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/29/1202a"
units:
  - "Chapter 18 — Employee Retirement Income Security Program"
  - "Subchapter II — Jurisdiction, Administration, Enforcement; Joint Pension Task Force, Etc."
  - "Subtitle A — Jurisdiction, Administration, and Enforcement"
---

# §1202a. Employee plans compliance resolution system

- (a) **In general—** The [Secretary of the Treasury](/usc/29/1301.md?p=b-2-B) shall have full authority to establish and implement the [Employee](/usc/29/1083.md?p=c-7-D-vi) Plans Compliance Resolution System (or any [successor](/usc/29/1301.md?p=a-14-C-ii-IV) program) and any other [employee](/usc/29/1083.md?p=c-7-D-vi) plans correction policies, including the authority to waive income, excise, or other taxes to ensure that any tax, penalty, or sanction is not excessive and bears a reasonable relationship to the nature, extent, and severity of the failure.
- (b) **Improvements—** The [Secretary of the Treasury](/usc/29/1301.md?p=b-2-B) shall continue to update and improve the [Employee](/usc/29/1083.md?p=c-7-D-vi) Plans Compliance Resolution System (or any [successor](/usc/29/1301.md?p=a-14-C-ii-IV) program), giving special attention to—
  - (1) increasing the awareness and knowledge of small employers concerning the availability and use of the program;
  - (2) taking into account special concerns and circumstances that small employers face with respect to compliance and correction of compliance failures;
  - (3) extending the duration of the self-correction period under the Self-Correction Program for significant compliance failures;
  - (4) expanding the availability to correct insignificant compliance failures under the Self-Correction Program during audit; and
  - (5) assuring that any tax, penalty, or sanction that is imposed by reason of a compliance failure is not excessive and bears a reasonable relationship to the nature, extent, and severity of the failure.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 109–280, title XI, § 1101, Aug. 17, 2006, 120 Stat. 1055.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Codification

Section was enacted as part of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and not as part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 which comprises this chapter.