Tax Equity And Financial Responsibility Acts Of 1982 And 1983 (TEFRA)
Legislation that redefined life insurance and raised taxes on life insurance companies. Among the provisions were new rules for some life insurance products, including a definition of flexible premium life insurance, and an increase in life insurance company taxes. Congress was concerned that a policyholder could take a substantial amount, say $1 million, and, after putting a few dollars toward a life insurance premium, put the remainder into a tax-free investment vehicle. One of two tests had to be satisfied for a policy to qualify as life insurance: the cash surrender value policy could not exceed a net single premium, and the death benefit had to represent a certain percentage of the cash value, which declined as the policy-holder got older. For example, at age 40, the death benefit must be 140% of cash value. The second rule closed a loophole on tax-free withdrawals from annuities. Prior to 1982 annuity holders could withdraw their initial premium tax free at any time. The 1982 code decreed that any money withdrawn from an annuity would be considered income first and would therefore be taxable. The older 1959 tax code devised a shorthand formula for determining taxes paid by insurers. The formula worked when interest rates were low, but as they soared, insurers found ways to reduce the increased tax bite. The 1982 code introduced a stopgap measure designed to raise taxes on life insurers by $3 billion.
Popular Insurance Terms
Latin phrase meaning "without which not," signifying a legal rule in tort and negligence cases. Under this rule, a plaintiff trying to prove that an injury was a direct result of a ...
Same as term Commutation Right: right of a beneficiary of a life insurance policy to exchange the future installments due that beneficiary for a lump sum distribution. ...
Disability in which a wage earner is forever prevented from working because of injury or illness suffered. ...
Insurance company's adjusted surplus divided by its adjusted liabilities. The greater this ratio, the greater the financial strength of the company that can be used for writing new business ...
Legislation establishing the minimum education and experience level required by the state as a prerequisite for a person to become a licensed agent. ...
Events that do not have any influence on the occurrence or nonoccurrence of another event; for example, a plane crashing in Shreveport should have no influence on a plane crashing in Dallas. ...
Same as term Graduated Life Table: mortality table that reflects irregularities from age to age due to chance fluctuations in the sequence of the rates of mortality. The rates of death as ...
Fund that contains the portion of the premium that has been paid in advance for insurance that has not yet been provided. For example, if a business pays an annual premium of $1000 on ...
Table used in calculating minimum non forfeiture values and policy reserves for ordinary life insurance policies. These tables, which give minimum values that must be guaranteed to policy ...
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