Feuer on Questions of Justice and Law Raised When an Employee Benefits Plan Beneficiary Strangles His Grandmother, the Participant, to Death

On what might already have won best title of the year for a paper, Albert Feuer has a new piece out entitled:  Questions of Justice and Law Raised When an Employee Benefits Plan Beneficiary Strangles His Grandmother, the Participant, to Death, 32 Tax Management Weekly Report 1756, 12/23/2013. 

The following is a brief summary provided by Albert:

A recent New York Daily News story, “NYC Law Firm Files Suit to Bar Slain Employee's Killer from Collecting on 401(k),” describes a heinous crime, and suggests the crime was compounded by foolish employee benefits law that may permit the slayer to keep the death benefits.  My article responds that the so-called slayer rule that deprives a slayer of a plan participant of the participant’s death benefits may lead to injustice in some cases.  Moreover, I argue that ERISA allows state criminal law to deprive the slayer of such benefits, but does not allow state non-criminal law to deprive the slayer of such benefits, and adherence to the slayer rule may create tax qualification issues for pension plans.

Another interesting, pulled-from-the-headlines piece by Albert involving the intersection of the real world and ERISA. Check it out when you have the chance.

PS