In response to the coronavirus outbreak and related restrictions on social interactions, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today issued Notice 2020-42, which temporarily allows certain retirement plan participants and beneficiaries to use remote signatures and notaries for elections.

Applicable in 2020, the guidance explains how a person can use remote notarization with live audio-video technology to satisfy the authorizations and consent requirements of participant elections.

In the case of a participant election witnessed by a plan representative, the IRS explains, a person may use an alternative system if the following requirements are satisfied:

• The individual must be effectively able to access the electronic medium used to make the participant election;
• The electronic system must be reasonably designed to preclude any person other than the appropriate individual from making the participant election; 
• The electronic system must provide the individual making the election with a reasonable opportunity to review, confirm, modify, or rescind the terms of the election before it becomes effective; and 
• The individual making the election, within a reasonable time, must receive confirmation of the election through either a written paper document or an electronic medium under a system that satisfies the applicable notice requirements.

The eight-page text of Notice 2020-42 is posted here.

An IRS press release is posted here.

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