Description: The actuarial committee that authored this report developed a model to estimate the revenue the tax would generate. The results point out key considerations for an excise tax on high cost health plans, including the wide range of results generated by sensitivity to certain assumptions.

Description: Basic discussion of premiums paid, investment in the contract, and basis as used in IRC provisions applicable to life insurance and annuity contracts.

Description: Owners of nonqualified annuity contracts, individuals under qualified retirement plans, and annuity issuers are left without any published guidance on when annuity payments can be used to satisfy the SEPP [Substantially Equal Periodic Payments] exceptions to the 10 percent penalty tax under sections 72q2D and 72t2Aiv. This article discusses that problem. The insurance industry requested guidance on this issue.8

Description: On Aug. 11, 2011, the Internal Revenue Service IRS released Notice 2011-68,1 regarding the tax treatment of stand-alone and “combination” longtermcare LTC insurance products. The Notice provides interim guidance on certain issues and requests public comment on others. This article discusses that notice and taxation issues related to Long Term Care products, combination products and long term care riders to annuities.

Description: The interaction of section 7702 cash value accumulation test [CVAT] and state nonforfeiture laws [SNFL] create a dual limitation on traditional life insurance contratcs. CVAT limiting the maximum permissible cash value and SNFL requiring a minimum cash surrender value. This article examines these dual limitations.

Description: October issue of Taxing Times

Description: The Internal Revenue Service issued its seminal ruling interpreting Internal Revenal Code section 7702A[c][3][B][i], commonly referred to as the Necessary Premium Test [NPT]. The purpose of the NPT is to shelter certain death benefit increases from material change status, avoiding the 7 pay test's reapplication on their account.

Description: Many life insurance companies that issue participating policies follow business practices that they argue allow them a deduction for tax purposes for policyholder dividends in the year prior to actual payment. This article discusses several recent developments related to policyholder dividend accruals, including Revenue Ruling 2011-29 and the New York Life and MassMutual cases, and highlights the four arguments commonly made by the IRS in challenging companies' claimed tax treatment of such dividends.

Description: The author uses a reprint of an article from the very first edition of the “News from the Individual Life Insurance and Annuity Product Development Section” and assistance from the Taxation Section Council and Friends of that Council to decipher the changes between the life insurance tax environment back in the 1980s compared to today.

Description: Small Talk Newsletter, June 2005, Issue No. 24. Last fall, the Internal Revenue Service IRS released Notice 2004-61, 2004-41 I.R.B. 596 October 12, 2004, interpreting the reasonable mortality charge requirement applicable to life insurance contracts under Section 7702 of the Internal Revenue Code.