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Agree with Lou--suggest you write a letter to the Service under IRC Section 6652(e) pleading reasonable cause. That Code section says "failure to file a return....required (under the various sections) " which this was not. We have not been denied in our 47-year history of filing about a dozen of these under various fact patterns.

What each of “he” and “she” needs is to get work from a good estate-planning lawyer. To get candid, unconflicted advice, each needs his or her own lawyer. Planning of the kind your post describes is mainstream, and need not be expensive. That’s especially so for a client who is intelligent, educated, and well organized. Much of what one might seek can be accomplished by supporting a retirement plan’s, IRA’s, or non-retirement investment’s beneficiary designation or transfer-on-death registration (or a bank account’s pay-on-death registration) with a premarital agreement or after-marriage consent and a trust (whenever and however created) to provide the differing beneficial interests a retirement plan’s, IRA’s, or investment’s beneficiary regime does not provide. (I’ve never seen an employer’s retirement plan that restricts a beneficiary to an income-only distribution. And many or most retirement plans do not determine income in the sense of the fiduciary accounting concept of distinguishing between income and principal.) For an ERISA-governed retirement plan, a good estate-planning lawyer would recognize that a premarital agreement alone is not enough for a qualified election (with the spouse’s consent) to negate an ERISA § 205 survivor annuity or death benefit. For a governmental retirement plan, one would look to the plan’s provisions (which often are, but might not be, stated or explained in a comprehensive document or summary) to discern whether the plan provides a participant’s spouse a survivor annuity or other death benefit, whether one may elect out of that benefit, and what is required for a valid opt-out. To simplify some planning and implementation steps, a participant entitled to an ERISA-governed retirement plan’s distribution might consider a rollover into a non-ERISA plan or IRA. Likewise, one might consider a rollover from a non-ERISA plan into an IRA. (There are several creditor-protection, investment, expense, and other factors that, depending on the surrounding facts and circumstances, might point in other directions.) Of the three retirement kinds—ERISA, governmental or church, or non-plan IRA, an IRA is most likely not to apply a protection for a spouse in the IRA’s administration. (For a non-ERISA plan or IRA, that a protection is not applied in a plan’s or an IRA’s administration does not defeat whatever rights a spouse has under one or more States’ laws.) For a trust that provides a surviving spouse income but not principal, one could design a trust so a trust’s beneficiary is treated as a designated beneficiary for a retirement plan’s or IRA’s minimum-distribution provisions. While the proposed rules do not yet apply (and are not even effective), one might design and document a trust to follow both the proposed and current rules. If the spouses ever will or might reside in a community-property State (or otherwise invoke a community-property law), either or both might want a premarital agreement that undoes community property for some or all of the property interests. If any State’s law for a spouse’s elective share might apply (which is almost everywhere in the USA if community-property law does not apply), either or both soon-to-be spouses might want a premarital agreement that undoes a surviving spouse’s elective-share right. If either would-be spouse imagines a possibility of divorce before death, he or she might want a premarital agreement to specify what property division applies on the divorce. Either would-be spouse might want a premarital agreement to specify how the spouses share or divide household and other living expenses. If you have access to 403(b) Answer Book, 457 Answer Book, Governmental Plans Answer Book, Roth IRA Answer Book, or SIMPLE, SEP, and SARSEP Answer Book, my Beneficiary Designations chapter in each book gives a reader further details on many of these points. Beyond the property-rights, tax, and other law issues involved, a good lawyer can help her client with practical aspects of the planning. This calls for foresight when the planning must or should consider the circumstances and personalities of his-and-hers families.

I am so sorry that you are facing this. The "small me" wishes you could find a way to make the plan pay painfully for its position, or choice of counsel, or whatever shortcoming is putting you through this. I am also biting my tongue to contain the many negative remarks that come to mind relating to the ethics and competence of churches. Last ditch attempt: Is there any possibility of finding a decent ERISA lawyer in the community of the sinister/bumbling lawyer who would first have a local lawyer- to - local lawyer talk before having to play hardball?

You misspelled "undocumented".

I assume the issue is a lack of a SSN. I get an undocumented person might not feel comfortable going to the federal government to get a number but it can be done. An undocumented alien can apply for ITIN no questions asked. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/individual-taxpayer-identification-number I quote the website: They are issued regardless of immigration status, because both resident and nonresident aliens may have a U.S. filing or reporting requirement under the Internal Revenue Code. ITINs do not serve any purpose other than federal tax reporting.