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Beating The 'Wrap': The Agency Effort To Control Wraparound Insurance Tax Shelters, Charlene Luke
Beating The 'Wrap': The Agency Effort To Control Wraparound Insurance Tax Shelters, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
The first wraparound insurance tax shelter was marketed in the mid-1960s as a means for contract owners to exploit the inconsistency arising from the difference in the tax treatment of investment returns earned inside variable insurance contracts and the economically similar returns available outside such contracts. Federal income tax is deferred (and in some cases eliminated) on the income accruing inside variable insurance products - called inside buildup. In the most recent iteration of the wraparound insurance gambit, insurance companies wrapped private-placement, hedge-fund interests inside variable insurance products in order to allow contract owners to defer tax on the ordinary …
Taxing Risk: An Approach To Variable Insurance Reform, Charlene Luke
Taxing Risk: An Approach To Variable Insurance Reform, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
Variable life insurance and annuity contracts are susceptible to being marketed and sold to taxpayers for whom such contracts are unsuitable and to being used in wraparound insurance shelters. As a method of addressing these problems, I propose current taxation for the risky returns on these contracts but continued deferral for a deemed, risk-free return amount. The increased transparency resulting from the forced separate tax accounting of contract components should improve consumers' ability to receive adequate suitability evaluations and may also lead to lower fees. Current taxation of risk-related returns removes an apparently key shelter incentive and should make it …
Managing The Next Deluge: A Tax System Approach To Flood Insurance, Charlene Luke, Aviva Abramovsky
Managing The Next Deluge: A Tax System Approach To Flood Insurance, Charlene Luke, Aviva Abramovsky
Charlene Luke
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has fallen short in fulfilling its promise as a social safety net for flood loss victims. In place of the NFIP, this Article proposes a mandatory social insurance plan that would harness the strengths of the federal taxing authority to provide basic relief for flood losses occurring at an individual’s primary residence. Any plan for addressing flood loss must navigate hotly debated, competing views about government intervention, redistribution, private markets, environmental protection, and property rights. This Article argues that government intervention in flood loss relief is inevitable, at least in the foreseeable future, and …