Description: This article discusses the important lessons for insurance companies that participate in drafting settlement agreements designed to achieve favorable tax treatment of the settlement payments.

Description: Update on section activities from the chairperson.

Description: The complete issue of the February 2013 Taxation Section newsletter.

Description: A brief discussion of the articles included in the February 2013 issue of Taxing Times.

Description: A continuation of the conversation about principle-based reserves (PBR). Actuaries and an attorney discuss revisit federal-income tax-related issues as they relate to PBR.

Description: Overview of sessions and highlights from the 2012 Product Tax Seminar held in Washington DC in September 2012.

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: 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: In order to encourage health insurance issuers to offer health insurance coverage on the Exchange and on the individual and small group markets, while ameliorating the potential impact on any particular health insurance issuer of providing coverage without pricing for pre-existing conditions or the gender of the insured, the Affordable Care Act includes three risk-sharing programs: the Transitional Reinsurance program, the Risk Corridor program and the Risk Adjustment program (collectively referred to as the “3Rs”). The financial and tax reporting of each health insurance issuer is affected by the implementation of these risk-sharing programs because each health insurance issuer is required to pay for the programs’ costs, and some issuers are or will be eligible for benefits under them.

Description: The column summarizes tax and retirement matters that ACLI and its member companies have been actively addressing. These include IRS 2015-2016 priority guidance items, the Department of Labor proposed fiduciary rule, proposed IRS hedge fund reinsurance rules, and new IRS notional principal contract rules.