PROFESSOR SAMANTHA PRINCE AND RESEARCH ASSISTANT TIM AZIZKHAN FILE RECOMMENDATION WITH THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY FOR TOPICS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE IRS’s 2024-2025 PRIORITY GUIDANCE PLAN
May 2024 — Professor Samantha J. Prince, joined by a member of her research team, Tim Azizkhan ’25, authored a public comment responding to the Internal Revenue Service’s invitation for recommendations on items to be included in its 2024-2025 Priority Guidance Plan.
Their public comment drew on Professor Prince’s scholarship in the employee benefits space to inform the IRS of the devastating effects that 401(k) vesting schedules have on the American worker. The comment advocates for the IRS to prioritize recommending to Congress that vesting schedules be eliminated from single-employer 401(k) plans. The comment highlights that vesting schedules benefit many American employers at the expense of vulnerable populations that historically struggle to accumulate retirement wealth. The comment also emphasizes that the number of plan participants affected by vesting schedules and the amount of forfeitures generated by them are growing rapidly. Finally, the comment presents how the elimination of vesting schedules would lessen administrative responsibilities for plan administrators and regulatory burdens for the IRS. All of this evidence was used as justification to persuade the IRS to add this topic to their Priority Guidance Plan.
This comment builds off research illustrated in Professor Prince’s recent scholarship: Megacompany Employee Churn Meets 401(k) Vesting Schedules: A Sabotage on Workers’ Retirement Wealth and The Effects of Vesting Schedules – In Numbers co-written with Tim Azizkhan, Cassidy Prince, and Luke Gorman, forthcoming in Yale Law Journal Forum.
The comment was directly submitted to the Department of Treasury on May 30, 2024.
Professor Samantha Prince is an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of Legal Analysis & Writing at Dickinson Law. She has a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center and was a partner in a regional law firm where she handled transactional matters that ranged from an initial public offering to regular representation of a publicly-traded company. Most of her clients were small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including start-ups. A significant part of her practice was in employee benefits including retirement plan design and operation. An expert in entrepreneurship law, she established the Dickinson Law entrepreneurship program, is an advisor for the Entrepreneurship Law Certificate that is available to students, and is the founder and moderator of the Inside Entrepreneurship Law blog. Her research mainly comprises the changing world of work.