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taxable on her share of retirement benefits.13 Instead, we based
our decision on the former spouse’s ownership of retirement
rights under California community property law and the principle
that property is taxed to its owner. See Poe v. Seaborn, supra.
We believe the same approach is appropriate here.
An order to a retirement plan to pay an early retirement
benefit (i.e., a retirement benefit payable to the nonemployee
spouse before the employee spouse retires) can be a QDRO. Sec.
414(p)(4). Respondent contends that petitioner could have
obtained a QDRO providing an early retirement benefit to his
former spouse under which she would have been taxable on the
payments at issue.
Because domestic relations are preeminently matters of State
law, Congress rarely intends to displace State authority in this
area. Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 587 (1989). Even if
petitioner could have obtained an early retirement QDRO,
respondent does not contend that Federal law prohibits the
arrangement under California community property law that was made
in this case; i.e., petitioner paid his former spouse the benefit
13 The pension plan in Eatinger v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
1990-310, was not a qualified trust because it was a Government
plan, and, at that time, Government retirement plans were not
qualified plans. Karem v. Commissioner, supra at 526 n.4; see H.
Rept. 101-247, 1443 (1989).
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