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

Additional Living Expense Insurance is a type of coverage present on several types of Homeowner’s Insurance that reimburses additional costs caused because of the insured’s ...

Coverage outside an insured's home for personal items usually carried or worn while traveling. Protection is for personal property (apparel and jewelry), not for real property or property ...

Group in which subscribing members agree to (1) regulations governing their behavior, and (2) the qualifications that reinsurance contracts ceded to them must meet in order to be ...

Interest adjusted method that measures the cost of life insurance. Named for the late distinguished actuary M. Albert Linton. This method compares a whole life policy with a combination of ...

Excess of the value of an insurer's admitted assets over the total value of its liabilities and minimum capital requirements established by applicable statutes designed to assure the ...

Type of accounting method, in life insurance, designed to match revenues and expenses of an insurer according to principles designed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the ...

Money paid through state and federal programs to workers who are temporarily unemployed. The program, which was created by the social security act of 1935, is managed by the individual ...

Arrangement by which a policy owner authorizes an insurance company to draft his checking account for premiums due on an insurance policy. The drafting is usually monthly, persistency of ...

Future benefits to be paid to the policyholders and beneficiaries, assigned surpluses, and miscellaneous debts. These primary liabilities take the form of reserves, which must be listed on ...

Popular Insurance Questions