Kennedy: DOMA Implications for Employee Benefit Plans

Kathryn J. Kennedy (John Marshall), DOMA Implications for Employee Benefit Plans: Round 2, 144 Tax Notes 947 (Aug. 25, 2014):

This report updates Kennedy’s earlier Tax Notes article on employee benefits guidance issued by the IRS and the Department of Labor soon after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decisions in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. The IRS has since issued additional helpful guidance, and there has been a groundswell of federal and state litigation contesting states’ same-sex marriage bans. In this report, Kennedy discusses the current state of affairs and highlights many of the questions not addressed by the IRS and Labor Department guidance. She argues that without additional regulatory guidance, which appears unlikely, those questions will have to be resolved through future litigation.