Description: A look back on the 25th anniversary of the 1984 Tax Act DEFRA and newly proposed regulations and legislation to raise tax revenue.

Description: On June 17, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service published Final Regulations implementing changes to loss reserve discounting under section 846 of the Internal Revenue Code made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This note addresses changes made in the Final Regulations, particularly modification of rules for determining the interest rate used for discounting, in response to comments from taxpayers on the proposed regulations.

Description: Updates on partial annuitization and exhanges, prevailing CSO valuation mortality tables, disclosure of offshore accounts through FATCA.

Description: The IRS believes that any segregated asset account comprised of a pool of individual securities will run afoul of the investor control doctrine. This article articulates that such a conclusion would be deeply flawed based on the administrative, congressional, and judicial precedents involving the investor control doctrine.

Description: A discussion of the American Financial case in detail. Also includes background on what the statute requires and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s ruling and litigating positions.

Description: COLI products continue to be the focus of litigation by the IRS over the deductibility of policy loan interest. This COLI Update consists of two articles concerning COLI cases and their most recent court decisions. The first concerns a District Court’s ruling on insurable interest, and the second provides an analysis of the Sixth Circuit reversal of a trial court decision in a case involving economic substance.

Description: The article discussing the differing tax definitions of life insurance in the US and Canada and relates them to new international tax reporting regimes such as FATCA.

Description: On June 30, 2015, the U.S. Tax Court reaffirmed the viability of the Investor Control Doctrine in Webber v. Commissioner. The case serves as a valuable example of what not to do with regard to the investment of assets supporting a variable life insurance contract purchased through a private placement transaction. In the end, however, the Webber court leaves a lot of questions unanswered—most significantly, the elusive answer to how to define investor control. This article examines the Investor Control Doctrine, as explained and applied by the U.S. Tax Court in Webber, and considers some of the open questions that remain after June 30, 2015.

Description: This article is a discussion about the life settlement industry and the tax considerations for life insurance bought and sold in the secondary market.

Description: Illustrates the lack of clarity about how the various grandfather clauses applicable to life insurance contracts should be applied in practice.