Description: Congress has acted in recent years to remove outdated provisions governing the federal income taxation of life insurance companies from the Internal Revenue Code. In particular, section 809 and section 815 were repealed and suspended, respectively, in 2004. This article chronicles the demise of these provisions and explains why Congress was right in removing them from the Code.

Description: Full version of Taxing Times, May 2007, Volume 3, Issue No. 2.

Description: The article provides an introduction to some of the key limitations that the Internal Revenue Code imposes on business uses of life insurance, focusing on the limitations under Section 264(a) on business deductions for premiums and interest expenses related to life insurance, the similar limitations under Section 264(f) for unrelated interest expenses of businesses that own life insurance, the limitations under Section 101(j) on the excludability of death benefits under employer-owned life insurance contracts, and the recently-enacted rules for life settlement transactions.

Description: Full version of Taxing Times, May 2006, Volume 2, Issue No. 1.

Description: A discussion of tail-design LTC riders for annuities and how contract cash values are offset by reductions to the annuity contract. LTC benefits, and how they relate to the annuity contracts, are also discussed.

Description: This article discusses the ruling on the new BOLI arrangement and addresses three aspects of the tax treatment of the arrangement: (1) the LLC’s taxation as a partnership as opposed to an investment company, (2) the deductibility of interest expenses by the LLC and its members, and (3) the excludability of death benefits under the Policies, which began life as employer-owned life insurance contracts.

Description: Article examines a proposed amendment to the MAP-21 Act that would have changed a number of tax requirements regarding so-called life settlements.

Description: Tidbits relate to contingent deferred annuities, wellness benefits in qualified long-term care contracts, and reactivating the active financing exception for insurance companies.

Description: This article discusses a new procedure for correcting inadvertent failures to satisfy the diversification requirements applicable to variable annuity and life insurance contracts under section 817h of the Internal Revenue Code.

Description: The article summarizes PLRs 201515001 and 201519001, in which the IRS addressed the treatment of a non-qualified deferred annuity contract under the investor control doctrine and other applicable rules. The contract provides a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit and investment options that correspond to “public” mutual funds. The IRS concluded that the investor control doctrine will apply to treat the contract purchaser as the owner of the mutual fund shares for federal income tax purposes. The IRS also addressed certain other tax aspects of the arrangement. The effect of the rulings is that the contract will be taxed similarly to a contingent deferred annuity (where the policyholder holds the mutual fund shares in his or her own brokerage account), while being structured like a traditional deferred variable annuity (where the insurance company holds the shares in its separate account).