Updated SKILLs Suite, v2026.4.1, Release Notes
Release v2026.4.1 of the ERISA SKILLs Suite is available now, with content current through October 31, 2026.
Release v2026.4.1 follows v2026.4, which was current through October 3, 2026. It is an update for currency. October brought a restated correction program for qualified plans, a new statute on ESOP valuations, two significant health plan rules and several appellate decisions, and the SKILLs now reflect each of them.
A restated EPCRS
On October 22, 2026, the IRS issued Rev. Proc. 2026-34, which restates the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System and supersedes Rev. Proc. 2021-30 and Notices 2023-43 and 2024-77. The Plan Corrections SKILL has been rebuilt around the new revenue procedure, and every other SKILL that relies on the correction programs now cites it. The changes the SKILLs cover include:
- Wider self-correction. Any eligible inadvertent failure can be self-corrected, including plan document, demographic and employer-eligibility failures and plan loan failures, and a favorable determination letter is no longer a condition.
- A longer correction period. A correction is treated as made within a reasonable time if it is completed by the later of the end of the third plan year after the year of the failure or 18 months after the failure is identified.
- Small overpayments. An overpayment of $250 or less needs no recoupment, corrective contribution or notice.
- VCP and Audit CAP. The threshold for a group VCP submission drops from 20 plans to 10, and a failure to amend that is found only in a determination letter review carries a sanction of 200% of the VCP fee.
- Automatic enrollment errors. The §414(cc) safe harbor is now permanent and extends to SEPs, SIMPLE IRAs and terminated employees.
The IRS also issued Rev. Proc. 2026-33, which sets up a correction program for IRAs and, from May 1, 2027, a new way to request a waiver of the 60-day rollover deadline. The Distributions and Plan Corrections SKILLs cover both.
ESOP appraisals: the Retire through Ownership Act
The Retire through Ownership Act (Pub. L. 119-124), signed on October 15, 2026, adds a new ERISA §3(18)(B). Under it, an ESOP fiduciary may rely in good faith on an independent appraisal prepared under the standards of Rev. Rul. 59-60 when it determines the value of employer stock. The ESOP SKILL covers the new rule, which applies to determinations made on or after October 15, 2026, and the renumbering of the existing adequate-consideration definition as §3(18)(A)(ii).
Health plans
- Transparency in Coverage. The final rules of October 6, 2026 and FAQs Part 75, including in-network and out-of-network files posted every three months instead of monthly, per-network files and the new accuracy attestation.
- PBM fee disclosure. The Department of Labor's final rule requiring pharmacy benefit managers, and brokers and consultants affiliated with them, to disclose their compensation to the fiduciaries of large self-insured plans, for plan years beginning on or after July 1, 2027.
- No Surprises Act. The IDR operations changes that apply from November 1, 2026, and the government's petition to the Supreme Court in HHS v. Texas Medical Association, No. 26-491, which challenges the nationwide vacatur of the qualifying payment amount rules.
- Retiree medical. Rev. Rul. 2026-22, on paying §401(h) medical benefits to participants who are eligible for in-service distributions at age 59½.
Retirement plans and the PBGC
- The 2027 PBGC premium rates and maximum guarantee, and the 2027 Social Security wage base of $192,300.
- The amendment deadline for a cash balance plan that uses the SECURE 2.0 §348 relief, and the loss of anti-cutback protection for an amendment adopted after it.
- The current status of the §414A automatic enrollment regulations, which cleared White House review on October 16, 2026 but had not been published by October 31.
Case law
- Bolton v. Inland Fresh Seafood (11th Cir. 2026) (en banc): in the Eleventh Circuit, a participant no longer has to exhaust the plan's claims procedure before suing on a statutory ERISA claim.
- Aldridge v. Regions Bank: with certiorari denied, the Fourth and Sixth Circuits both treat a surcharge measured by lost benefits as legal damages that §502(a)(3) does not allow.
- Trout v. Meijer: a tobacco-surcharge wellness suit dismissed in full, now on appeal to the Sixth Circuit.
- The status of Anderson v. Intel, argued in the Supreme Court on October 6, and of three certiorari petitions on actuarial-equivalence assumptions, in which the Court has asked for responses.
Two corrections
The review behind this release also found two statements in the Governmental, Church and Tribal Plans SKILL that were wrong, and both are corrected. Notice 2007-67 extended only the deadline for dividing mixed tribal plans, not the general good-faith relief of Notice 2006-89, and the mandatory Social Security coverage rule for public retirement systems reaches only wholly owned instrumentalities.
The Desk Reference too
The ERISA Benefits Law Desk Reference, and the Research Assistant that works from it, now state the law as of the same date, October 31, 2026.
What remains unchanged
The Suite is still twenty-eight SKILLs that you install in your own Claude account. It still names a judgment call as a judgment call instead of answering it, and it still tells you its release date whenever currency matters.
Updating
If you hold a license to a prior release, you can update at half the current license price for your tier. That rate never expires. See the SKILLs Suite for details.
This post is general information about technology and process, not legal advice. Questions requiring legal judgment should be directed to qualified ERISA counsel of your own choosing.