Death exception for early withdrawal

[jgsalentine]

My son died last year in Texas.  He was considered indigent so we had to fly down there and pay all expenses to bury him.  To pay for all of this Renee (my wife) took an early withdrawal from her work's pension plan. ($7900).  Can I deduct all expenses including travel lodging food and funeral expenses under the "death" clause

[dmertz · Accepted solution]

No, the death exception to the early-distribution penalty only applies to distributions from the deceased's retirement accounts (of which there were apparently none), not to distributions from your retirement accounts.