Description: February 2009 Supplement to the Taxation Section newsletter, Taxing Times

Description: This article describes the transfer pricing rules applicable to life reinsurance transactions generally, and then outlines a methodology for testing life reinsurance transactions to demonstrate compliance with transfer pricing standards applied by tax authorities.

Description: This article summarized the Administration's proposals for new tax revenues in 2010 with respect to insurance and offers the ACLI viewpoint.

Description: An announcement of the new editorial board members of the newsletter, TAXING TIMES, and the role they play in the development of articles for the newsletter.

Description: A discussion of the issues to be considered for computing tax reserves relating to guaranteed renewable and noncancellable health insurance and how these concerns are sometimes overlooked.

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: The guidance provided by the proposed regulations specifically related to insurance is the first detailed set of rules provided under FATCA and incorporates many of the topics identified as issue areas in the comment letters received by Treasury from domestic and foreign insurance companies and trade associations over the past two years. This article focuses on the provisions that apply specifically to insurance companies.

Description: A discuss of notice and consent requirements for employer-owned life insurance policies and the IRS rules again on an annuity-LTC combination product.

Description: A discussion around the comment letter that the ACLI submitted on the proposed regulations to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

Description: I.R.C. § 4371 imposes an excise tax on policies issued by foreign insurers or reinsurers covering U.S. risks. The application of the tax to funds withheld reinsurance can raise difficult questions. The IRS’s position is that an accrual concept applies, although that position is questionable. Taxpayers that instead determine the excise tax by looking only to actual payments made by the ceding company to the reinsurer or to the net amount of the ceded premiums after adjusting for the allowance paid by the reinsurer have a variety of arguments to support their position. The language of the premium excise tax, the regulations thereunder, the legislative history of the provision, and the very nature of an excise tax all support the position that the tax applies only when there is an actual payment. Other Code provisions that use similar language as well as the Supreme Court also support this view.