Description: A discussion about premium deficiency reserves and tax regulations for employer-owned insurance contracts

Description: Summary of private letter ruling the IRS released in February 2013 regarding a partnership formed to hold and manage bank-owned life insurance contracts. The article follows up another article from the same authors in the May 2012 issue of Taxing Times regarding an earlier ruling on a similar structure.

Description: This article begins with a brief review of the treatment of QAB charges under the Code and the guidance the Internal Revenue Service the “Service” has issued regarding the manner in which taxpayers should account for QAB charges Part I. It then describes Rev. Rul. 2005-6’s three alternatives for addressing improper accounting for QAB charges Part II. It also includes a discussion about an Alternative C closing agreement.

Description: Articles on IRS private letter rulings on combination products, IRS treatment of reinsurance under section 845, and IRS waivers for failed contracts under section 7702.

Description: The article summarizes the provisions of H.R. 1 that impact the tax qualification of life insurance contracts and the tax reporting of life settlements

Description: This article provides a short history of the correction procedures previously developed to address compliance failures and the shortcomings of those procedures under sections 101f and 7702, laying the foundation for a sea change in the correction process.

Description: This article discusses tax rates used in computing toll charges for closing agreements with respect to corrections under IRS section 7702.

Description: The IRS believes that any segregated asset account comprised of a pool of individual securities will run afoul of the investor control doctrine. This article articulates that such a conclusion would be deeply flawed based on the administrative, congressional, and judicial precedents involving the investor control doctrine.

Description: A discussion of the PLR that addresses a Wellness Rider that an affiliated group of life insurance companies proposed to offer only on a prospective basis with newly issued life insurance contracts.

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.