Elliot I. Daniel

Elliot I. Daniel, who died in 1987 at age 42, served in the government as an employee benefits attorney leader in providing guidance on the then-new Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). Elliot was inducted in 2000 as a Charter In Memoriam Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”).

Elliot graduated from Brooklyn College and received a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law. After law school, he worked in New Jersey at Prentice-Hall (which later became part of Wolters Kluwer), which at that time published weekly tax law updates.

Elliot began his career with the IRS in the early 1970s, just as ERISA was nearing enactment. With ERISA came an entirely new and complex set of protections for plan participants under IRS and Department of Labor (“DOL”) shared jurisdiction generally known as “prohibited transactions” provisions. Congress added these provisions to address the important concerns about the dangers to plan participants’ benefits from conflicts of interests by those handling employee benefit plans.

Elliot and others were tasked with putting the difficult new law into action and providing guidance. On the IRS side, Elliot was one of a small group of IRS Employee Plans staffers assigned to implement the prohibited transactions excise tax provisions under Code section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code. Those tax provisions overlapped others under ERISA sections 406, 407, and 408 under Title I. The new prohibited transactions law was elaborate and interwoven with well-defined terms, more ambiguous terms, and yet to be issued agency exemptions. Some of the new sections in Title I of the law identified prohibited transactions between employee benefit plans and “parties in interest” as well as allowed for granting administrative exemptions to these rules by the DOL. The excise tax provisions applied to almost, but not wholly, identical prohibited transactions for “disqualified persons” who were almost the same as, but not identical to “parties in interest” and also gave exemption authority to the Department of Treasury. The intricate new legal landscape left many practical questions for benefit plans that fell to the agencies and required a good deal of coordinated agency work between the IRS and DOL.

To ease the jurisdictional coordination issues, in 1978, the Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978 (43 FR 47713, October 17, 1978) was issued by Presidential Executive Order and, among other steps, transferred certain of the prohibited transactions authority for section 4975 from Treasury to the DOL. In 1979, Elliot and many others from the IRS prohibited transactions staff were transferred from the IRS to DOL to handle the DOL’s enhanced role in the developing prohibited transactions area of the new law.

Elliot had a variety of responsibilities at the DOL in the 1980s and was recalled by one College Fellow as a “legendary figure.” His duties included service as the Assistant Administrator for Fiduciary Standards, in acting or formal capacities, with responsibility for prohibited transactions exemptions, regulations, and opinions under Part IV of Title I of ERISA. He also was Assistant Administrator and Associate Director for Regulations and Interpretations, again in acting or formal capacities.

One of the most prominent pieces of guidance he worked on was the so-called “Maldonado Letter” pertaining to a client of College Fellow Kirk F. Maldonado, which was signed by Elliot on March 2, 1987, as Associate Director for Regulations and Interpretations. The letter was well-known as one of the first articulations of the important settlor/fiduciary distinction under which actions of an employer in the design, establishment, and termination of a plan (known as “settlor” functions) were found to relate to the business activities of the employer as distinguished from actions of fiduciaries. Under the letter, settlor expenses generally were not payable by an employee benefit plan.

Highly respected by colleagues, Elliot was remembered as one of the people who put the foundations of ERISA in place and whose contribution to the development of the law could not be overstated. In his honor, the DOL established the Elliot Daniel Award, given annually to an outstanding employee. His dedication to work was admired by colleagues - nothing stood in Elliot’s way and he brought enthusiastic delight in rising to challenges at work. Colleagues found that he had a kind heart and could always be approached with a problem. A true public servant, his contributions helped plans comply with the new law and helped protect participants’ benefits.


Photo Source: The Decade Book, American College of Employee Benefits Counsel 2000-2010