The term voluntary employees' beneficiary association in section 501(c)(9) of the Internal Revenue Code is not necessarily coextensive with the term employees' beneficiary association as used in section 3(4) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1002(4) , and the requirements which an organization must meet to be an employees' beneficiary association within the meaning of section 3(4) of ERISA are not necessarily identical to the requirements that an organization must meet in order to be a voluntary employees' beneficiary association within the meaning of section 501(c)(9) of the Code.
26 C.F.R. §1.501(c)(9)-7