Outside the Scope of This Book

The Desk Reference covers the federal law of employee benefit plans and the tax, employment, and enforcement rules that bear directly on them. Some questions that arise in a benefits matter belong to other fields, and a few benefits subjects are not yet treated. This page lists both, so that a reader who does not find a subject knows whether it was left out on purpose.

Related fields not covered

The following fields often touch a benefits question, but the Desk Reference does not treat them except where a benefits rule turns on them:

• employment law generally, including wage and hour law, discrimination claims outside benefit plans, and the litigation of FMLA and USERRA reemployment claims;
• labor law, including collective bargaining under the NLRA and contract actions under LMRA §301;
• securities practice, including Section 16 reporting and short-swing liability, Rule 10b5-1 plans, and disclosure liability;
• actuarial work, including the certifications that only an enrolled actuary may make;
• benefit plans and tax rules of countries other than the United States;
• advice to individual participants about their own benefits;
• insurance regulation, including the licensing and regulation of insurers and producers;
• immigration, workers' compensation, and unemployment insurance;
• trusts and estates, bankruptcy practice, and corporate and tax matters outside benefits;
• plan administration, recordkeeping, and accounting operations;
• the regulation of health care providers;
• prevailing-wage determinations under the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act;
• criminal law, including the defense of criminal charges arising from a benefit plan.

Where a benefits rule depends on one of these fields, the relevant chapter states the benefits rule and notes the point at which the other field takes over.

Benefits subjects not yet treated

The following benefits subjects are not treated in this release:

• digital assets and cryptocurrency as plan investments, beyond the note in Part 3 on the rescission of the DOL's 2022 compliance release;
• lifestyle spending accounts and other employer accounts that are taxable by design;
• standalone telehealth coverage as an excepted benefit (pre-deductible telehealth under a high deductible health plan is covered in Part 13);
• travel benefits for care that is not available locally;
• captive insurance and stop-loss captive funding for self-insured plans;
• dual-qualified Puerto Rico plans and other territorial plans.