Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax: Implications For Corporate-owned Life Insurance

Definition of "Corporate alternative minimum tax: implications for corporate-owned life insurance"

INSURANCE tax that exhibits direct impact on the book income preference. Beginning with the year 1990, the book income preference became equal to 75% of the excess of current adjusted earnings of the alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI). Book income preferences are affected by corporate-owned life insurance in the following situations:

  1. If the insured dies, the excess of the life insurance policy's DEATH BENEFIT over the CASH SURRENDER VALUE becomes book income to the corporation.
  2. If the insurance policy's annual premium exceeds the increase in the cash surrender value for a particular year, the result is a decline in the book income and thus a decline in the corporation's exposure to the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
  3. Conversely, if the insurance policy's cash surrender value exceeds the increase in the annual premium for a particular year, the result is an increase in the book income and thus an increase in the corporation's exposure to the alternative minimum tax.

Generally, if the corporation in any given year has taxable income, corporate-owned life insurance results in an alternative minimum tax liability if a significant death benefit is paid to the corporation upon the death of the insured. The result is that the alternative minimum tax will cause a reduction in the net death benefit from the life insurance policy paid to the corporation.

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Insurance Terms

Facility that provides short periods of stay for a terminally ill person in a homelike setting for either direct care or respite. A "terminally ill" person has a life expectancy of six ...

Company organized with the business objective of providing claims adjustment services to insurance companies that do not have an internal claims department. ...

Insurance company that is licensed by a state to market and service particular lines of insurance in that state. ...

Clause in an insurance policy stipulating that the benefits under the policy will accrue to the right of the insured. For example, if the insured leaves a violin at a repair shop and that ...

Social insurance that provides benefits to temporarily disabled workers in a few states. Five states require employers to pay cash benefits if workers are disabled. They are Rhode Island, ...

Index that reflects changes in industrial output by manufacturers, mines, electric utilities, and natural gas utilities. This is a monthly index published by the Federal Reserve. ...

Group that monitors government health insurance programs. Authorized by the 1972 amendment to the Social Security Act, PSROs were set up to cut costs and minimize abuses by checking on the ...

Insurance for which (1) an application has been filed but the first premium has not yet been paid or (2) a life insurance policy that has not yet been delivered to an insured. ...

Insurance company that is organized under the state laws by which the company is licensed and that is called a domestic insurer. Also, this insurance company may be chartered and licensed ...

Popular Insurance Questions