Description: This article discusses key tax issues that exist under current law with respect to asset rebalancing and hedging transactions that an insurance company might undertake.

Description: This article is an introduction to the principles of taxation of U.S. owned foreign insurance operations, such as controlled foreign corporations.

Description: On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court released its decision in the case of United States v. Windsor, Executor of the Estate of Spyer, et al. addressing the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). This article explores the implications for life insurance and annuity contract spousal provisions that are governed by federal law.

Description: Discusses how companies must ensure that significant and necessary product development, and administrative and compliance system changes, have been completed and tested in time to accommodate new requirements.

Description: The article discusses the role played by the "Blue Books" issued by the Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation and the authority accorded them by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Description: The NAIC approved the 2012 Individual Annuity Reserve table as the standard for computing reserves for individual annuity contracts and developed a model law regulation for states to adopt. On February 17th, 2015, ACLI submitted a letter to Alexis MacIvor, Chief of the Insurance Branch in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, notifying her that as of December 24, 2014, 26 states had approved the 2012 IAR Table as the reserve standard for immediate annuity contracts issued on or after January 1, 2015. The letter thus confirms that the 2012 IAR Table is the Prevailing Commissioners' Standard Table for purposes of computing life insurance reserves under section 807(d) of the Code for individual annuity contracts.

Description: This article provides an overview of the Regs and highlights important open issues regarding determination of a U.S. shareholder’s GILTI amounts.

Description: The article analyzes Private Letter Ruling 202031008, which considers how Internal Revenue Code sections 72(q) and (u) apply to an annuity contract issued to a trust. In particular, the Ruling interprets the terms “taxpayer,” “holder” and “held by” in those Code sections in situations where a non-qualified deferred annuity contract is issued to a grantor trust or a non-grantor trust. The Ruling’s analysis and conclusions differ in some respects depending on which of these types of trusts is involved. In addition, although the Ruling does not address sections 72(s) or 72(e)(4)(C), the Ruling has potential implications under those provisions because they also use the term “holder” and “holds,” respectively.

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: 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.