Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To encourage private-sector employers to sponsor new pension plans and U.S. workers to save for retirement, federal law authorizes a variety of tax incentives, such as the ability to defer taxes on contributions to qualified plans until the funds are distributed, up to certain limits. Since 2000, the dollar amount of these limits has increased over time. However, from 2009 through 2011, the number of new pension plans formed each year in the private sector remained relatively flat, and was below the levels reported previously for 2003 through 2007. Specifically, from 2009 through 2011, private-sector employers sponsored about 81,000 new pension plans, including 75,000 defined contribution (DC) plans and 6,000 defined benefit (DB) plans. DC plans with fewer than 100 participants accounted for about 90 percent of all new plan growth over this period. Moreover, the net change in the number of pension plans over this period was negative, with the number of terminated plans more than offsetting new plan formation by nearly 34,000 plans. Over the 3-year span from 2009 through 2011, private-sector employers terminated about 106,000 DC and 9,000 DB plans. Overall, there were about 52,000 …