All plans: Remind participants who are age 73 or older that they may need to withdraw their required minimum distribution (RMD) by December 31 if they are subject to the regulations (i.e., they are no longer employed by your firm or they were 5% or more owners* in the year they attained age 72). The Program also sends reminders to affected participants. Although the Program will be facilitating the automatic payment of most RMDs, there may be some participants who maintain a Self-Directed Brokerage Account (SDBA) and do not have enough assets in the core investment options to satisfy the RMD (withdrawals cannot be made directly from an SDBA). Similarly, the plan may be subject to the qualified joint and survivor annuity (QJSA) regulations, in which case the Program will have provided the participant with a one-time blanket spousal consent form to be returned before the RMD payment can be made. If the automatic payment cannot be processed for one of these reasons, those participants will be responsible for ensuring that the RMD is made by year-end, and if an RMD is not timely made, the participant may be subject to an excise tax equal to 50% of the RMD amount.