Description: This article comments on a 1972 paper on the same subject by John Fraser, which made a very careful analysis of the relation between the current earnings rate and the taxable interest. The author builds on Fraser’s illustrative calculations, which showed clearly that there was an optimal spread between the current earnings rate and the assumed reserve interest rate to produce the maximum interest deduction, by including an analysis of the after-tax yield effect.

Description: This article discusses XXX reserve financing, one of the most common life insurance industry capital markets funding transactions.

Description: An interview with William J. Wilkins, Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service and the Assistant General Counsel in the Department of the Treasury.

Description: In September 2009, the Internal Revenue Service IRS released a private letter ruling PLR 200939018 June 18, 2009 addressing a contract in which the right to receive annuity payments and otherwise access a contract’s cash value is contingent upon the annuitant living to a specified age. The ruling holds that the contract is an annuity contract for purposes of section 72 of the Code. This article reviews the specifics of the ruling.

Description: This paper was written to demonstrate that universal life and indeterminate premium products are similar to participating plans. Followed by several discussion papers submitted.

Description: A discussion of the three private letter rulings addressing the tax treatment of group insurance contingent annuity contracts providing guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits linked to an investment account released by the Internal Revenue Service.

Description: An explanation of the reasons why the IRS should rule on the application of section 351 to the transfer of assets and reserves in an indemnity coinsurance transaction where the ceding company transfers more assets to the assuming company than it would in an arms-length transaction and, therefore, the ceding company actually receives or is deemed to receive stock in the exchange for the transferred assets including the value of insurance in force. We also will summarize other interesting rulings in the PLR.

Description: The Internal Revenue Code includes certain rules that apply when a taxpayer has a change in method of accounting. A special rule applies when a life insurance company changes its basis of computing reserves. The article discusses two recent court cases, Bosamia v. Commissioner and Capital One Financial Corp. v. Commissioner, that address change-in-method-of-accounting issues. The article examines whether and how the courts' conclusions in these two cases might apply to changes in basis of computing reserves to correct errors.

Description: Primer on the federal income taxation of nonqualified annuities

Description: From a session at a meeting of the Society of Actuaries held in San Diego, CA, June 22-23, 2000 This discussion reviews the need for and a process for remediation of errors made with respect to an inadvertent non-egregious failure to comply with the modified endowment contract rules under Internal Revenue Code Section 7702A.