Description: The United States district court for the Southern District of Ohio recently issued its opinion in American Financial Group and Consolidated Subsidiaries v. United States. The issue in the case as framed by the Internal Revenue Service IRS was whether Actuarial Guideline XXXIII AG 33 applies retroactively or prospectively to the calculation of reserves for deferred annuity contracts. This article is a discussion of this opinion.

Description: IAA Delegate Council & Committee Reports - Mexico City, Fall 2018

Description: This paper presents well-known results in the theory of dependent competing risks that are fundamental in extending multiple-decrement theory towards a dependent-decrement theory. From the Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1994, Vol. 46.

Description: This article discusses adjusting IRC 415 limits for prior distributions. The proposed IRC 415 regulations issued last May contained guidance regarding how to adjust the benefit limits for prior distributions. This is commendable on the part of the IRS. How to adjust the IRC 415 limits for prior distributions has long been a source of confusion even for experienced pension actuaries. The best methodology is not immediately clear, and some methods have become common practice even if they can lead to inconsistent or unreasonable results. From Pension Section News, January 2006, No. 60.

Description: This paper provides remarks on critical biometric aspects underlying risk identification and risk assessment for life annuity portfolios and pension funds.

Description: Actuary/accountant/tax attorney dialogue on recent guidance issued regarding treatment of deficiency reserves with respect to the “statutory reserves cap” of Internal Revenue Code section 807(d)(1).

Description: A discussion of how much risk public pension plans should take on.

Description: This paper attempts to distill from these various models a practical application of the key principles for reform.

Description: This paper examines the so called 1/n investment puzzle which has been observed in defined contribution plans whereby some participants divide their contributions equally among the available asset classes. It has been argued that this is a very naive strategy since it contradicts the fundamental tenets of modern portfolio theory. We use simple arguments to show that this behavior is perhaps less naive than it at first appears. We show that when we account for estimation error the 1/n rule has some advantages in terms of robustness and we demonstrate this with numerical experiments. From The Actuarial Research Council, Volume 38, No. 1.