Form 8955-SSA reports employees who no longer work for your company but still have a vested account balance in your Gusto 401(k) plan. The form is submitted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which shares the information with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to notify former employees about retirement funds they may have left behind. This article explains what information is reported, how we file it for you, and how to find your filed forms.
The form requires the following for each terminated employee who still has a vested balance and has not yet gotten their retirement benefits:
Social security number
Full name
Vested account balance
Once any previously reported participants take distributions, we file Form 8955-SSA again for the year the distribution occurs to report the removal of those funds.
As a Gusto 401(k) sponsor, preparation and electronic filing of Form 8955-SSA is included at no additional charge. However, we need to get any necessary information from you in a timely manner to file.
Note: If you transferred your plan to Gusto Retirement this year and need to file Form 8955-SSA for the previous plan year, work with your prior service provider.
To file your Form 8955-SSA, we need the following for each dismissed participant we are required to report:
Full name
Social security number
Termination date
Make sure you maintain this information in your company's human resource or payroll system for accuracy and government filing purposes.
We need to report any employee who still has a vested account balance at the time of filing and who left the company or the plan in the year prior to the tax filing year.
If Jenny was dismissed on Apr. 4, 2024 with a vested account balance of $1,000, she would not be reported on the 2024 Form 8955-SSA. If Jenny maintains her account balance throughout 2025 and up to Jul. 31, 2026, we would file a 2025 Form 8955-SSA and report Jenny's vested balance on it.
If Jenny then rolls her vested balance out of her account in Oct. 2028 after we filed a 2025 Form 8955-SSA for her, we would report the $0 balance for the filing year in which the distribution occurs.
In this case, we would include Jenny on the 2028 Form 8955-SSA with a $0 balance. Jenny would not be included on the 2026 and 2027 Form 8955-SSAs.
If your plan year ends on Dec. 31, your Form 8955-SSA is due by Jul. 31 of the following year (or the last day of the seventh month after the end of the plan year). If necessary, we will file an extension until Oct. 15 to finish the filing.
If you do not have any participants to report for a plan year, we do not file a Form 8955-SSA unless we need to file for participants who should have been reported in a previous year.
If you had a plan prior to Gusto Retirement, you or your prior service provider should have filed a Form 8955-SSA for each plan year in which there were participants to report. Reach out to your prior service provider to confirm they filed for any applicable plan years before switching to Gusto Retirement.
If your forms were not filed before switching, we report all terminated participants with an account balance as of the date your plan starts with Gusto Retirement. However, penalties may apply for any participants who are reported late due to missed filings in prior years. Learn more about penalties related to the filing of Forms 8955-SSA.
We do not make Forms 8955-SSA available because they contain personally identifiable information for previous employees. If you would like to request a copy of the information reported on your 8955-SSA, contact our Retirement Sponsor Support team.
Learn more about Form 8955-SSA on the IRS FAQ page.