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 The 1982 code decreed that any money withdrawn from an annuity would be considered income first and would therefore be taxable.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
Coverage in property insurance for an employee's lost income if a peril such as fire damages or destroys the place of employment, causing the worker to become unemployed. For example, a ...
Table used by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in evaluating split dollar life insurance plans as to the extent of the economic benefit that is considered taxable ordinary income to the ...
Complete coverage for hospital and physician charges subject to deductibles and coinsurance. This coverage combines basic medical expense policy and major medical policy. ...
Risk management tool to determine risk exposure and to help spread the risk. A risk manager considers a business firm's individual exposures separately. As the number of exposures ...
System for calculating the relationship between a pension plan's present cost and its present future benefits. This relationship shows the extent to which a pension plan's benefits are ...
Method of accident prevention whose objective is to detect system-component deficiencies that have the potential for causing accidents. ...
Rule that stipulates how to calculate the actual cash value of property that has been damaged, destroyed, or stolen. The thesis of this rule is that whatever evidence that can be produced ...
in health insurance, reimbursement for an insured's medically related expenses, including room and board, surgery, medicines,anesthetics, ambulance service to and from a hospital, ...
Policy purchased by an insured from an insurer in another state. This insurer is not licensed in the state where the insured's risk is located. ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.