Division III · Health and Welfare

Part 17. Fringe Benefits and Employment Taxation

This Part covers the Code's income-exclusion fringe benefit provisions — §132 (the principal categories, including commuter/transportation benefits, the suspended-and-now-permanently-unavailable-to-most-civilians moving expense exclusion (intelligence-community employees and new appointees excepted for taxable years beginning after 2025), and the §132(j)(1) nondiscrimination overlay that reaches only two of the categories), §127 (educational assistance and the now-permanent student loan repayment feature), §137 (adoption assistance), §79 (group-term life insurance, Table I imputed income, and the §79(d) key-employee nondiscrimination trap), and §128 (Trump Account employer contribution programs, moved here in full from Part 13 (COBRA, HIPAA, and Welfare Benefits)) — together with the threshold ERISA plan-status analysis for disability, life, AD&D, severance, EAPs, and voluntary benefits (the payroll practice exclusion at 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-1(b), the voluntary/group-type insurance safe harbor at 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-1(j), and the Fort Halifax ongoing-administrative-scheme test for severance), and payroll taxation and Form W-2 reporting mechanics (FICA/FUTA treatment, third-party sick pay, severance wage classification under Quality Stores, and Box 12 codes).

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Related Parts

• Part 26. Severance, WARN, and Workforce Restructuring — for severance in full
• Part 13. COBRA, HIPAA, and Welfare Benefits — for §125 delivery mechanics and the HIPAA/ACA excepted-benefit tests that run alongside (but are distinct from) the ERISA plan-status analysis here
• Part 18. Nonqualified Deferred Compensation, 409A, 457, and Executive Compensation — for the general §409A framework and executive change-in-control payments
• Part 8. 403(b) Plans — to avoid confusing Code §128 with SECURE 2.0 Act §128
• Part 4. Reporting, Disclosure, Recordkeeping, and Claims — for Form 5500/SPD/claims-procedure mechanics once an arrangement is determined to be an ERISA plan
• Part 19. Equity and Incentive Compensation — for equity-based severance and change-in-control acceleration
• Part 25. Employee Benefits in Mergers and Acquisitions — for the treatment of severance, EAPs, and fringe benefits in a transaction