Employee Benefits Issues in California Following the U.S. Supreme Court's Same-Sex Marriage Decisions
Polsinelli Podcast - Defense of Marriage Act
Supreme Court’s Rulings On Same-Sex Marriage Spark Many Questions On Employee Benefits
Viewer's Guide to Gay Marriage Oral Arguments
Action Item: This is the fourth installment of our Annual Estate Planning Newsletter, and focuses on matters of interest to married couples. We urge you to review this installment to ensure that your 2016 estate and tax...more
This past June, the United States Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___, 135 S.Ct. 2584 (2015), that the Fourteenth Amendment (i) requires a state’s civil marriage laws to apply to same-sex couples on the...more
Prior to the Obergefell decision, the U.S. Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Windsor, struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which mandated that federal laws only recognize opposite-sex marriages. As a result of...more
Earlier this year, the IRS published updated guidance on the application of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor to qualified retirement plans. In Windsor, the Court held that the Defense of Marriage Act’s...more
Now that some of the dust has settled on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Windsor, employers who haven’t done so already should take immediate steps to review their retirement plan documents and administrative...more
A major reason that employee benefits, such as employer- provided healthcare and retirement plans, exist is that they provide a tax-advantaged way for an employer to provide additional compensation to an employee, her spouse,...more
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued Notice 2014-19 and related answers to FAQs, which give plan sponsors additional guidance on how the Supreme Court's decision last June in U.S. v. Windsor applies...more
The Internal Revenue Service recently furnished employers with welcome guidance concerning coverage of same-sex spouses in qualified plans. In a new Notice, the Service discusses how qualified arrangements such as...more
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, the IRS announced in Revenue Ruling 2013-17 that lawfully married same-sex couples would be treated as married for all Internal Revenue Code purposes. On...more
In the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor (Windsor), the Court held that, for federal purposes, Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Although the dispute in the Windsor...more
On June 26, 2013, when the Supreme Court determined that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional, the tax and benefit plan implications were unclear. Later, in Revenue Ruling 2013-17, the...more
The recent release of Notice 2014-19 and IRS FAQs provide some initial pieces of the guidance that the IRS first promised in September 2013 regarding administrator obligations when amending employee benefit plans to account...more
Last week, the IRS released Notice 2014-19, which provides guidance on the application to retirement plans of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which found Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act...more
Employers and participants alike have been anxiously waiting for further guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on how marriages of same-sex couples will be treated for purposes of qualified retirement plans. On...more
On April 4, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2014-19 providing guidance on the application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor (“Windsor”) to tax-qualified retirement plans (such...more
Plan sponsors now know how and by when retirement plans must comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor. The IRS has released its long-awaited guidance on the effective date by which qualified retirement...more
IRS Notice 2014-19 provides long-awaited guidance on the application of the decision in United States v. Windsor to retirement plans qualified under Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) Section 401(a). For tax-qualification...more
On April 4, 2014, the Department of the Treasury issued its long-awaited supplemental guidance on when and how tax-qualified retirement plans (including 401(k) plans) must comply with Windsor v. United States, in which the...more
Last week, the Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2014-19, which sets forth the rules for recognition of same-sex spouses in retirement plan administration, as required under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. vs....more
In the summer of 2013, the Supreme Court issued a decision in U.S. v. Windsor, striking down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and eliminating the requirement that federal law recognize only marriages...more
The following are the most significant employee benefits-related legal developments that occurred in December of 2013. At the beginning of 2013, after considering feedback from our clients and contacts who work in the...more
Recent guidance issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) division of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) provides some initial...more
With this summer’s Supreme Court rulings on DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, and Prop. 8 allowing same-sex marriages to be recognized in states that allow them, private sector and public agency employers in California...more
Earlier this summer, following the Supreme Court's issuance of the landmark case, United States v. Windsor, which held Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional, we published an Executive Alert...more
For many years, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defined marriage under federal law as a legal union between one man and one woman. In June 2013, however, in the case of United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court of the...more