SEND AN E-MAIL TO THIS FELLOWIsidore Goodman
Isidore Goodman, who passed away in 1990 at age 83, was one of the most prominent faces of guidance on U.S. pension law, particularly before enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). A dedicated, brilliant, and legendary public servant, Isidore was inducted into the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”) in 2000 as an In Memoriam Fellow.
Highly educated, Isidore graduated from New York University, where he also received a master's degree in commercial science and a law degree. He also was a certified public accountant.
He practiced law in New York before joining the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) in 1935. He had a 42-year career at the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) starting as an IRS agent in New York and Chicago until moving to Washington, DC in 1944. Around 1957 to 1974, he served 17 years as chief of the IRS pension trust branch. Isidore had an out-sized impact on pre-ERISA pension law. Enactment of ERISA in 1974 changed the old law dramatically, and he helped the IRS and practitioners adapt, serving three years as assistant to the assistant commissioner for employee plans and exempt organizations. He retired from the IRS in 1977.
Before ERISA, the IRS (and Isidore) were the center of the pension universe. Pension law and written guidance were sparse and there were not as many personnel working the area at the IRS. Not only was Isidore responsible for significant regulations and rulings on whether retirement programs were eligible for tax exemption, but, filling the need from gaps in guidance, also made detailed and precise informal comments in speeches. College Fellow Jeff Mamorsky, former Legal Editor of the Prentice Hall Pension and Profit Sharing looseleaf services, recalled that prior to ERISA, the only real regulation of pensions was found in the qualification rules of the IRS that had been in place since 1928. Guidance on maintaining the qualification of a plan through compliance with the tax laws was found in revenue rulings which were only issued on a limited basis and more often interpretations by Mr. Goodman through his speeches which were analyzed and published for tax lawyers and actuarial consultants specializing in pensions. When Mr. Goodman made a speech, it was tantamount to a revenue ruling.
Pension plans were a growing and important benefit for employees. Isidore’s formal and informal guidance helped practitioners design plans that met the legal requirements. For example, in one speech on August 10, 1965, Isidore gave details on the determination letters in the pension and profit-sharing area that enabled taxpayers to know prior to committing themselves to a course of action, or before making an irrevocable contribution, how they might fare taxwise. He explained that, as an aid to taxpayers, practitioners, and Service personnel, guides for the qualification of plans had been promulgated and updated every few years. He noted that it was just another step in the constant effort to make the [IRS] National Office position known as quickly as practicable and to aid in establishing and maintain plans which qualified for the various tax benefits provided under the Internal Revenue Code.
Isidore’s abilities were as out-sized and legendary as his monumental achievements. College Fellow Jeff Mamorsky noted that Mr. Goodman was a brilliant man that had a photographic memory. Jeff remembered being told by his colleague Leo Brown, formerly pension chief of the IRS in Manhattan, that during a visit with Mr. Goodman in the hospital, Mr. Goodman dictated the requirements for minimum funding for pensions of rank and file participants in terminating plans (then known as Mimeograph 5717) to his secretary while suffering with pneumonia. Jeff was suitably impressed noting that any practitioner familiar with those complicated rules knew what an unbelievable accomplishment that was.
Isidore’s involvement in leading and shaping the IRS pension area included IRS personnel. College Fellow Bill Posner, a part of the IRS ERISA drafting team, recalled, “I did work with Izzy. In fact he interviewed and hired me in 1966. I was in the Pension Trust Branch, headed by him until the passage of ERISA, and worked with him until he retired.”
Isidore, known by many as “Mr. Goodman,” had a serious and formal presence and was often known to stand firm by his established interpretations. College Fellow Jeff Mamorsky noted that if anyone disagreed or wanted more guidance on a Mr. Goodman speech, they would have to request a meeting with him at the IRS National Office. Jeff remembered that in 1972, shortly after leaving Prentice Hall and joining Mobil Oil as their in-house pension counsel, Jeff had just such a meeting with Mr. Goodman on an interpretation Mobil wanted but was contrary to his recent guidance. In frustration, after losing his arguments, Jeff asserted to Mr. Goodman that "my client deserves justice" and Mr. Goodman replied, "Mr. Mamorsky if you want justice go across the street to the Department of Justice; here, in the Pension Trust Office of the IRS you need to comply with my interpretation of the tax qualification rules of the Internal Revenue Code."
College Fellow Prof. Daniel Halperin shared that, when he began to practice pension law at a law firm in the early 1960s, he “relied on Goodman's speeches as if they were regulations. He was for me the MOST prominent person in this world. I recall someone saying to me at that time that ‘the law on pensions and profit sharing was in Washington in Izzy Goodman's head.’ After I joined Treasury in 1967, I did have a meeting with him. For me that was big and I was excited to meet him. If I remember correctly, I had no luck persuading him to my point of view.”
Isidore followed his IRS service with a private law practice in retirement. He also wrote articles for The Pension Plan Guide, a publication of Commerce Clearinghouse. With the advent of ERISA, he would be remembered for numerous publications, notably the many handy booklets which he wrote for CCH, such as “Choice of Plan under ERISA” and about 30 others.
Isidore’s contributions and influence in the IRS continued years afterward. His role at the heart of pre-ERISA long was noted in later years, such the federal court in In re Gulf Pension Litigation, 764 F. Supp.1149, 1162 (S.D. Tex. 1991) dealing with complete versus partial plan terminations: “The genesis of the partial termination concept was apparently a 1954 article by the IRS’s chief pension expert, Isidore Goodman, who explained that ‘[a]t times, it is easier to devour an object with several bites than it is to attempt to devour it in one gulp. So it is with a plan which is chopped down little by little until it becomes merely an empty shell.’ 32 TAXES 48, 53 (January 1954).”
Isidore was a no-nonsense, dedicated public servant who helped taxpayers build compliant pension and profit-sharing plans for employees. His detailed, helpful, and prolific guidance assisted countless lawyers and tax professionals enlisted to help employers. As noted by College Fellow Jeff Mamorsky, “[h]e truly was the PENSION CHIEF of the IRS.”
