ends for one's plan or at the time when one's coverage under that plan ends. An example of such an event is the loss of coverage due to a separation from the employer. This means that if, for example, a person is employed by a company from January through June and covered on their cafeteria benefits plan (including FSA) during that time, but does not elect and pay for continued coverage under that plan (i.e., COBRA), the person's coverage period is defined only as January through June, not January through December as one might think. In this example, all covered expenses must be incurred between January and June of that year. Plan year grace period In 2005, the Internal Revenue Service authorized an optional grace period of up to 2½ months that employers can use in their plans, allowing use of the funds for up to 2½ months after the end of the plan year. In 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 contained provisions to allow employees to roll over the remainder of their accounts from 2020 into 2021 and from 2021 into 2022. Methods of withdrawal The FSA debit card was developed to eliminate "double-dipping", by allowing employees to access the FSA directly. It also simplified the substantiation requirement, which required labor-intensive claims processing. The debit card also enhances the effect of "pre-funding" medical FSAs. However, the substantiation requirement itself did not go away, and has even been expanded on by the IRS for the debit-card environment; therefore, withdrawal issues still remain for FSAs. These withdrawal issues have led to creative solutions by ecommerce companies who created an entire website dedicated to FSA-eligible items and accepting all FSA debit cards, and other websites which created a small portion of their website dedicated to FSAs. According to Celent, as of May 2006, there were approximately 6 million debit cards in the market tied to FSA accounts, representing 25% of the FSA participating community. Celent projects that FSA cards will increase FSA adoption rates. The average card participation rate was around 20% as of May 2006. By 2010, it is projected this rate will increase to 85%. Advantages and disadvantages Pre-funding and risks incurred by the employee and employer One consideration regarding medical FSAs is that the participating employee's entire annual contribution is available at the start of the plan year, commonly January 1, or after the first contribution to the