Applications for exemption and miscellaneous determination requests are assigned to Exempt Organizations specialists for review. If additional information is necessary to make a determination, a specialist will contact the organization for the information. Here¡¯s a list of questions that might be asked on this topic.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that membership in a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) is voluntary.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that a VEBA is controlled by:
? Its membership
? An independent trustee or trustees, or
? Trustees or other fiduciaries, at least some of whom are designated by, or on behalf of, the membership - Describe how you meet the requirement that criteria for eligibility for membership may not be selected or administered in a manner that limits membership or benefits to officers, shareholders or highly compensated employees of an employer contributing to or otherwise funding the VEBA.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that VEBA members must share an employment-related common bond.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that, generally, members of a VEBA must be employees. We consider a VEBA to be comprised of employees if the total membership on one day of each quarter in a tax year consists of at least 90% employees.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that a VEBA must provide for the payment of life, sick, accident or other similar benefits. Provide plan documents or insurance contracts showing benefits you provided.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that your VEBA benefits are only provided to your members, members' dependents and members' designated beneficiaries.
- Note: For purposes of IRC Section 501(c)(9), ¡°dependent¡± means the member's spouse, any child of the member or member's spouse who is a minor or a student (within the meaning of IRC Section 152(f)(2)); any other minor child residing with the member, or any other individual who the association, relying on information from the member, in good faith believes is a person described in IRC Section 152(a). For purposes of providing for the payment of sick and accident benefits to members of the VEBA and their dependents, the term ¡°dependent¡± includes any individual who is a member's child (as defined in IRC Section 152(f)(1)) and who is not age 27 by the end of the calendar year. A designated beneficiary can only receive life benefits and other similar benefits from a VEBA.
- Describe how you meet the requirement that a VEBA may not discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees.
- If your VEBA is part of a plan maintained under a collective bargaining agreement, provide a copy of the collective bargaining agreement.
Additional information
See the complete list of Applying for Exemption/Miscellaneous Determination Sample Questions by topic.