Treasury and the IRS announced a new way to fix certain IRA mistakes on October 22, 2026. The program, called the IRA Compliance Resolution System, is set out in Revenue Procedure 2026-33, and it does not take requests until May 1, 2027.

The system gives custodians and owners a formal way to ask the IRS to approve a fix for specific service-provider errors.

Four IRA errors the program covers

The revenue procedure covers specific failures, and each one involves a service provider, such as the bank or brokerage that holds the IRA. It lists four.

• A required minimum distribution that came out too small. The procedure’s example is a $10,000 required withdrawal where only $8,000 was paid out. The fix is to distribute the missed amount with earnings.
• The wrong kind of account. The custodian opens a Roth IRA when a traditional IRA was requested, or opens something that is not an IRA at all. The fix moves the balance, with earnings, into the right account.
• A tax mistake for a nonspouse beneficiary. An error leads the heir of an inherited IRA to believe a distribution can be rolled over tax free, and it becomes taxable. The fix is a contribution to a new inherited IRA in the same person’s name.
• A missed 60-day rollover. An IRA distribution is not rolled over within 60 days, and waiving that rule would be fair given events outside the owner’s control.

Anyone in one of those four situations is the person the program was written for. An owner who finds a short required withdrawal, a wrong account type or a rollover that missed its window should ask the custodian about the new procedure once it starts, and keep every statement and letter on the problem.

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Who files and what it costs

The IRS and Treasury set limits on what counts. Failures that are egregious, that involve diversion or misuse of IRA assets, or that relate to abusive tax avoidance transactions are left out. The program is meant for honest custodian errors, not for schemes or deliberate misuse of an account.

Either the IRA custodian or the IRA owner can file. The exception is the missed 60-day rollover, where the owner has to apply, because the procedure says the applicant cannot be a custodian in that case. A custodian that finds a systemic error can file for a group, but only when at least 10 IRA owners are affected.

The cost is set in Revenue Procedure 2026-33. For submissions made before January 1, 2028, the IRS user fee is $3,500 for a regular submission. A group submission costs $10,000 for the first 10 affected owners plus $250 for each additional owner, with a $50,000 cap. Filing goes through Pay.gov on Form 15443, and paper filings are not accepted.

Fees for submissions after 2027 will be set in a later revenue procedure. The IRS also says self-correction is not available under the new system for now, so every fix goes through a filing.

The 60-day rollover waiver

Owners who miss the 60-day rollover window have had to ask the IRS for a private letter ruling in the past. Under the announcement, those requests move to the new system over 2027 and 2028. For 2027 owners can use either route, and from 2028 the IRS expects waiver requests to go only through the new system.

The older, cheaper options stay. The IRS says its automatic waiver and self-certification procedures remain available at no cost. Those are laid out on the IRS page of FAQs on waivers of the 60-day rollover requirement, and an owner with a simple missed rollover should look there first.

A second update for workplace plans

The same IRS announcement, release IR-2026-126, also updates the program for workplace plans such as 401(k)s. Revenue Procedure 2026-34 expands the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System and replaces Revenue Procedure 2021-30. That update took effect on October 22, 2026, the day it was announced.

Frank J. Bisignano, the IRS Chief Executive Officer, said the procedures simplify and speed up how errors are fixed. Treasury and the IRS are also taking public comment. Comments on the IRA procedure are due January 20, 2027, in writing or through regulations.gov under docket IRS-2026-1387.

What owners can do before May

Nothing needs to be filed yet. Owners with one of the four problems can use the months before May 1, 2027 to pull the paperwork together: the account statements, the custodian’s letters and a note of the dates. Anyone who has a deadline running on a missed rollover should not wait for May and should use the existing waiver routes instead.

The open question is timing. Revenue Procedure 2026-33 says the program is effective May 1, 2027. Owners with a mistake caused by a service provider should ask their custodian now whether it plans to file once the system opens.

Made an IRA mistake that was the custodian’s fault?

A fixed IRA error still leaves a tax return to get right. A short required withdrawal, a wrong account type or a rollover that missed its window all change what shows up on a retiree’s return, and a mistake there can cost more than the one the IRS just agreed to help correct.

Cut Your Retirement Tax Bill: 12 Moves covers the rules that set that bill. It includes the new $6,000 senior deduction ($12,000 for a couple) for 2025 through 2028, and how much of Social Security is taxed, worked out on one worksheet.

It also puts the 2026 numbers on one page, so the figures for brackets and required withdrawals are in one place when the return comes due.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.