Agents from Hartford and other insurance companies were shown ways to sell large life insurance policies. This “Welfare Benefit Trust 419 plan or 412i plan should be shown to their profitable small business owners as a cure for paying too much taxes.
A Welfare Benefit Trust 419 plan essentially works like this:
• The business provides a fringe benefit for their employees, such as health insurance and life insurance.
• The benefit is established in the name of a trust and funded with a cash value life insurance policy
• Here is the gravy: the entire amount deposited into the trust (insurance policy) is tax deductible to the company,and
• The owners of the company can withdraw the cash value from the policy in later years tax-free.
Yes, the holy grail of tax avoidance has been achieved: tax deductible up front and tax-free when you withdraw. By the way, if you are not familiar with such investments there is a reason. They are not legal by the tax code. Physician practices, as well as other small and mid-sized businesses, became buyers into these welfare benefit trusts as they were sold as a way for the practice to “protect” a large profit in a certain year from being taxed. They were told it was not uncommon for a single transaction into a welfare benefit trust to be $200,000 to $300,000 dollars or more in a single premium payment, yielding typically a six-figure commission check.
A few years later the gig was up as it became obvious these could not be tax legal. My understanding is that most medical practices that bought these “unrolled” them when the major brokerage firms realized that avarice got the best of them and stopped selling them. In 1995 the IRS warned that they would be coming after these plans. In 2007, the IRS and the Treasury Department issued a formal warning cautioning “about certain Trust Arrangements Sold as Welfare Benefit Funds”. The IRS called these “abusive schemes” and made such a transaction what the IRS lovingly calls a “listed transaction”. Essentially, a listed transaction is a transaction that the IRS has determined to be a tax avoidance transaction. The IRS even keeps these Listed Transactions on their website, listed in chronological order from 1 to 34.
Welfare Benefit Trusts is #33.
Good Welfare Benefit Trusts
First of all, it is important to mention that “there are many legitimate welfare benefit funds that provide benefits” according to the IRS. Internal Revenue Code Sections 419 and 419A spell out the rules allowing employers to make tax-deductible contributions to Welfare Benefit Plans. There is nothing wrong with these plans and no mystery to them. After all, a medical practice or any business for that matter is allowed to deduct the costs of doing business as an expense. This includes employee salary and benefits.
VEBAs (Voluntary Employee Benefits Association) have been around since 1928 and are used by employers to provide health, life, disability, education and other benefits for their employees and are the original Welfare Benefit Trusts. When properly established and executed, a VEBA can be a legitimate employee benefit structure. In 2007 the United Auto Workers, in order to relieve the Big 3 Automakers from carrying the liability for their health plans on their accounting books, formed the world’s largest VEBA with over $45 billion in assets.
Bad Welfare Benefit Trusts
However, the IRS does have a problem with Welfare Benefit Plans or 419 plans that are promoted to small business owners as a scheme to avoid taxes and provide medical and life insurance benefits to key employees that in substance primarily serve the owner(s) of the business. These 419 Welfare Benefit Plan schemes claim that the employer’s contributions are deductible under IRC section 419 as ordinary and necessary business expenses, allowing the business owner to provide a life insurance policy for his favorite employee, himself, and accumulate cash value in a life insurance policy.
Lest there be any confusion or debate, IRC 264(a)(1) states:
(a) General rule
No deduction shall be allowed for -
(1) Premiums on any life insurance policy, or endowment or
annuity contract, if the taxpayer is directly or indirectly a
beneficiary under the policy or contract.
While VEBAs have been used properly, as in the UAW example above, unfortunately they are often a front for an abusive tax shelter. In the 1970’s VEBAs were being used by the wealthy as a popular tool for tax reduction and asset protection. In 1984 Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act, which limited the use of VEBAs. In the 1990’s however VEBAs were structured to give business owners tax benefits not allowed and got back on the IRS radar. Two state medical societies along with a neonatology group practice became test cases by the IRS that helped close those VEBAs with abusive tax structures and purporting to be employee welfare benefit plans: Southern California Medical Professionals Association VEBA, New Jersey Medical Profession Association VEBA and Neonatology Associates, PA. Although the VEBAs claimed to have favorable determination letters, the actual execution of the plan did not comply with the law, mainly by allowing the employees to hold term policies in the plan that could be converted into universal life policies at the same insurer and use the conversion credit account to spring cash value in the policy. This then allowed policyholders to borrow against the UL policy as a supposedly nontaxable source of retirement income, with the repayment of the loan paid out of the policy’s death benefits. (“Making Welfare Plans Work”, Advisor Today, September 2000 P 110). This of course is not allowed under the tax code.
Those that think that they may be in the clear with their abusive tax shelter because:
1. A large passage of time has occurred since they have owned it
2. They have a favorable determination letter
3. Other honorable businesses/ Medical Societies also have the same tax shelter
4. My insurance agent said it was legal
You may want to read the 98-page ruling by the United States Tax Court filed on July 31, 2000 in the case of the above-mentioned Neonatology and related cases. The long arm of the IRS reached back 9 years to 1991, 1992, 1993 disallowing hundreds of thousands of dollars and assessing deficiencies and huge “accuracy-related” tax penalties. Even the doctors that had died since then were not given a break either; their estates and surviving widows were assessed the deficiencies and penalties.
In 2002 the IRS talked Congress into passing new laws basically killing the use of multiple employer 419 plans. Some TPAs (third party administrators) that had set up the multiple employer plans discovered that they could use single employer 419 welfare benefit trusts and VEBAs because Congress forgot to include them when they passed the negative laws shutting done the multiple employer plans. This forced the IRS to issue notices 2007-83 and 2007-84, Rev. Ruling 2007-65 and make welfare benefit trusts listed tax transactions now on the listed tax transactions list. (“Negative IRS Notices On 419 and VEBA Plans” Roccy M. Defrancesco Nov 1, 2007)
Ugly Welfare Benefit Trusts
I call these “Ugly” because these Welfare Benefit Trusts were sold to small business owners after the 2007 IRS listed transaction warning, and after the multiple IRS notices and revenue rulings. The major brokerage firms by 2004 had stopped selling Welfare Benefit Trusts to protect their own financial interests, realizing these were compliance and lawsuit time bombs. The 2007 IRS listed transaction notice along with multiple other notices however did not seem to stop some smaller broker dealer firms and life insurance agents from promoting these.
I have become aware of the fact that Welfare Benefit Trusts that are in violation of the basics of the tax code (unlimited full deduction of premium, 100% tax free distribution to owner of cash value) are still being sold even today and even affecting existing clients. These Welfare Benefit Trusts go by many different names and the insurance agents selling them are using a number of different insurance companies to fund the plan. These plans involve the sale of an insurance policy usually with a six-digit premium that often pays the insurance agent a six-digit commission, so perhaps I should not be surprised that individuals (physicians?) are still being victimized.
Conversation with IRS Attorney on Welfare Benefit Trusts
I have meet and had many discussions with the IRS about abusive 419 and 412i plans. I discussed with xxxxxx, an IRS attorney that helped draft the listed transaction #33 on the IRS website, on what exactly the IRS considers an abusive Welfare Benefit Plan. She stated that, once you take out the fact that the trust cannot be offering a collective bargaining element which is covered by another IRS code, there were three elements they look for:
1. There has to be a Trust that claims to be providing welfare benefits
2. There is either a cash value policy involved that offers accumulation or a policy in which money is set aside for a future policy in which accumulation occurs, such as a term policy that can then offer a higher accumulated value.
3. The plan cannot deduct in any year more than the benefit provided. For example if the plan just provides a death benefit, the most that can be deducted in a year is only the term cost of that benefit, not the entire premium. If the plan offers medical benefits, then only the cost (what was paid out to the employee) for that benefit can be deducted in that year.
I found it interesting that the IRS is pursuing this broader definition as an abusive plan. xxxxx explained that in the case of a discovered abusive Welfare Benefit Plan, the IRS would disallow the deductions, assert income back to the owner as a distribution of profits, and assess penalties. The courts are clear that you cannot get out of penalties by claiming you are relying on the person that sold you the Welfare Benefit Plan.
What if you currently have a Welfare Benefit Trust for your Practice?
Realizing that someone you trusted has financially devastated you, carelessly misguided you and sold you a bogus tax program in order to pay cash for his new 7 series BMW can be a difficult and rude awakening. After accepting the fact that your Welfare Benefit Plan you have for your practice meets the basic criteria as mentioned in this article as an abusive transaction, I would recommend that you consult an attorney that specializes in pursuing promoters of abusive Welfare Benefit Plans and discuss your options.
You must be proactive. You may be advised to file an IRS form 8886, which is a disclosure form related to prohibited tax shelter transactions. The penalties for failure to file a form 8886 can be stiff. Of course, filing this form will open the Pandora’s Box on your Welfare Benefit Trust to the IRS. Many of these 8886 filings are done incorrectly. An incorrectly filed IRS form is an unfiled IRS form, so please consult a CPA who is experienced in this area. Your attorney that has expertise with Welfare Benefit Trusts will be able to guide you with this. Regarding recourse, most all cases are settled out of court, as the insurance company, the agent, and the agency prefer to avoid the publicity.
A Welfare Benefit Trust 419 plan essentially works like this:
• The business provides a fringe benefit for their employees, such as health insurance and life insurance.
• The benefit is established in the name of a trust and funded with a cash value life insurance policy
• Here is the gravy: the entire amount deposited into the trust (insurance policy) is tax deductible to the company,and
• The owners of the company can withdraw the cash value from the policy in later years tax-free.
Yes, the holy grail of tax avoidance has been achieved: tax deductible up front and tax-free when you withdraw. By the way, if you are not familiar with such investments there is a reason. They are not legal by the tax code. Physician practices, as well as other small and mid-sized businesses, became buyers into these welfare benefit trusts as they were sold as a way for the practice to “protect” a large profit in a certain year from being taxed. They were told it was not uncommon for a single transaction into a welfare benefit trust to be $200,000 to $300,000 dollars or more in a single premium payment, yielding typically a six-figure commission check.
A few years later the gig was up as it became obvious these could not be tax legal. My understanding is that most medical practices that bought these “unrolled” them when the major brokerage firms realized that avarice got the best of them and stopped selling them. In 1995 the IRS warned that they would be coming after these plans. In 2007, the IRS and the Treasury Department issued a formal warning cautioning “about certain Trust Arrangements Sold as Welfare Benefit Funds”. The IRS called these “abusive schemes” and made such a transaction what the IRS lovingly calls a “listed transaction”. Essentially, a listed transaction is a transaction that the IRS has determined to be a tax avoidance transaction. The IRS even keeps these Listed Transactions on their website, listed in chronological order from 1 to 34.
Welfare Benefit Trusts is #33.
Good Welfare Benefit Trusts
First of all, it is important to mention that “there are many legitimate welfare benefit funds that provide benefits” according to the IRS. Internal Revenue Code Sections 419 and 419A spell out the rules allowing employers to make tax-deductible contributions to Welfare Benefit Plans. There is nothing wrong with these plans and no mystery to them. After all, a medical practice or any business for that matter is allowed to deduct the costs of doing business as an expense. This includes employee salary and benefits.
VEBAs (Voluntary Employee Benefits Association) have been around since 1928 and are used by employers to provide health, life, disability, education and other benefits for their employees and are the original Welfare Benefit Trusts. When properly established and executed, a VEBA can be a legitimate employee benefit structure. In 2007 the United Auto Workers, in order to relieve the Big 3 Automakers from carrying the liability for their health plans on their accounting books, formed the world’s largest VEBA with over $45 billion in assets.
Bad Welfare Benefit Trusts
However, the IRS does have a problem with Welfare Benefit Plans or 419 plans that are promoted to small business owners as a scheme to avoid taxes and provide medical and life insurance benefits to key employees that in substance primarily serve the owner(s) of the business. These 419 Welfare Benefit Plan schemes claim that the employer’s contributions are deductible under IRC section 419 as ordinary and necessary business expenses, allowing the business owner to provide a life insurance policy for his favorite employee, himself, and accumulate cash value in a life insurance policy.
Lest there be any confusion or debate, IRC 264(a)(1) states:
(a) General rule
No deduction shall be allowed for -
(1) Premiums on any life insurance policy, or endowment or
annuity contract, if the taxpayer is directly or indirectly a
beneficiary under the policy or contract.
While VEBAs have been used properly, as in the UAW example above, unfortunately they are often a front for an abusive tax shelter. In the 1970’s VEBAs were being used by the wealthy as a popular tool for tax reduction and asset protection. In 1984 Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act, which limited the use of VEBAs. In the 1990’s however VEBAs were structured to give business owners tax benefits not allowed and got back on the IRS radar. Two state medical societies along with a neonatology group practice became test cases by the IRS that helped close those VEBAs with abusive tax structures and purporting to be employee welfare benefit plans: Southern California Medical Professionals Association VEBA, New Jersey Medical Profession Association VEBA and Neonatology Associates, PA. Although the VEBAs claimed to have favorable determination letters, the actual execution of the plan did not comply with the law, mainly by allowing the employees to hold term policies in the plan that could be converted into universal life policies at the same insurer and use the conversion credit account to spring cash value in the policy. This then allowed policyholders to borrow against the UL policy as a supposedly nontaxable source of retirement income, with the repayment of the loan paid out of the policy’s death benefits. (“Making Welfare Plans Work”, Advisor Today, September 2000 P 110). This of course is not allowed under the tax code.
Those that think that they may be in the clear with their abusive tax shelter because:
1. A large passage of time has occurred since they have owned it
2. They have a favorable determination letter
3. Other honorable businesses/ Medical Societies also have the same tax shelter
4. My insurance agent said it was legal
You may want to read the 98-page ruling by the United States Tax Court filed on July 31, 2000 in the case of the above-mentioned Neonatology and related cases. The long arm of the IRS reached back 9 years to 1991, 1992, 1993 disallowing hundreds of thousands of dollars and assessing deficiencies and huge “accuracy-related” tax penalties. Even the doctors that had died since then were not given a break either; their estates and surviving widows were assessed the deficiencies and penalties.
In 2002 the IRS talked Congress into passing new laws basically killing the use of multiple employer 419 plans. Some TPAs (third party administrators) that had set up the multiple employer plans discovered that they could use single employer 419 welfare benefit trusts and VEBAs because Congress forgot to include them when they passed the negative laws shutting done the multiple employer plans. This forced the IRS to issue notices 2007-83 and 2007-84, Rev. Ruling 2007-65 and make welfare benefit trusts listed tax transactions now on the listed tax transactions list. (“Negative IRS Notices On 419 and VEBA Plans” Roccy M. Defrancesco Nov 1, 2007)
Ugly Welfare Benefit Trusts
I call these “Ugly” because these Welfare Benefit Trusts were sold to small business owners after the 2007 IRS listed transaction warning, and after the multiple IRS notices and revenue rulings. The major brokerage firms by 2004 had stopped selling Welfare Benefit Trusts to protect their own financial interests, realizing these were compliance and lawsuit time bombs. The 2007 IRS listed transaction notice along with multiple other notices however did not seem to stop some smaller broker dealer firms and life insurance agents from promoting these.
I have become aware of the fact that Welfare Benefit Trusts that are in violation of the basics of the tax code (unlimited full deduction of premium, 100% tax free distribution to owner of cash value) are still being sold even today and even affecting existing clients. These Welfare Benefit Trusts go by many different names and the insurance agents selling them are using a number of different insurance companies to fund the plan. These plans involve the sale of an insurance policy usually with a six-digit premium that often pays the insurance agent a six-digit commission, so perhaps I should not be surprised that individuals (physicians?) are still being victimized.
Conversation with IRS Attorney on Welfare Benefit Trusts
I have meet and had many discussions with the IRS about abusive 419 and 412i plans. I discussed with xxxxxx, an IRS attorney that helped draft the listed transaction #33 on the IRS website, on what exactly the IRS considers an abusive Welfare Benefit Plan. She stated that, once you take out the fact that the trust cannot be offering a collective bargaining element which is covered by another IRS code, there were three elements they look for:
1. There has to be a Trust that claims to be providing welfare benefits
2. There is either a cash value policy involved that offers accumulation or a policy in which money is set aside for a future policy in which accumulation occurs, such as a term policy that can then offer a higher accumulated value.
3. The plan cannot deduct in any year more than the benefit provided. For example if the plan just provides a death benefit, the most that can be deducted in a year is only the term cost of that benefit, not the entire premium. If the plan offers medical benefits, then only the cost (what was paid out to the employee) for that benefit can be deducted in that year.
I found it interesting that the IRS is pursuing this broader definition as an abusive plan. xxxxx explained that in the case of a discovered abusive Welfare Benefit Plan, the IRS would disallow the deductions, assert income back to the owner as a distribution of profits, and assess penalties. The courts are clear that you cannot get out of penalties by claiming you are relying on the person that sold you the Welfare Benefit Plan.
What if you currently have a Welfare Benefit Trust for your Practice?
Realizing that someone you trusted has financially devastated you, carelessly misguided you and sold you a bogus tax program in order to pay cash for his new 7 series BMW can be a difficult and rude awakening. After accepting the fact that your Welfare Benefit Plan you have for your practice meets the basic criteria as mentioned in this article as an abusive transaction, I would recommend that you consult an attorney that specializes in pursuing promoters of abusive Welfare Benefit Plans and discuss your options.
You must be proactive. You may be advised to file an IRS form 8886, which is a disclosure form related to prohibited tax shelter transactions. The penalties for failure to file a form 8886 can be stiff. Of course, filing this form will open the Pandora’s Box on your Welfare Benefit Trust to the IRS. Many of these 8886 filings are done incorrectly. An incorrectly filed IRS form is an unfiled IRS form, so please consult a CPA who is experienced in this area. Your attorney that has expertise with Welfare Benefit Trusts will be able to guide you with this. Regarding recourse, most all cases are settled out of court, as the insurance company, the agent, and the agency prefer to avoid the publicity.
benistar founder in jail get ur money back sue them
ReplyDeletePublished on Published onApril 6, 2017
Stacey Arenas
Stacey Arenas
Following Following Stacey Arenas
Assistant Managing Director, Marketing Manager at Vebaplan LLC
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Releases
Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Connecticut
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Connecticut Man Found Guilty in Multimillion Dollar Stranger-Originated Life Insurance Scheme
Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Jonathan Mellone, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General, Susan A. Hensley, Regional Director, U.S. Department of Labor – Employee Benefits Security Administration’s Boston Office, and Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), today announced that U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny has found DANIEL CARPENTER, 62, formerly of Simsbury, guilty of 57 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, money laundering and illegal monetary transaction offenses stemming from a scheme to defraud insurance companies into issuing insurance policies on the lives of elderly people for the benefit of the defendant and other investors, also known as a stranger-originated life insurance scheme.
The verdict follows a five-week long bench trial before Judge Chatigny in Hartford that began on February 16, 2016 and concluded on March 21, 2016. CARPENTER had waived his right to a trial by jury.
According to the evidence at trial, CARPENTER controlled a series of companies, based in Simsbury and Stamford, that developed the Charter Oak Trust (the “Trust”), an employee welfare benefit plan and trust whose primary objective was to secure insurance policies on the lives of elderly individuals that could be held by CARPENTER’s companies as investments, or resold on the life settlement market, which is a third-party market for life insurance policies. Typically, insurance agents working with, for, or on behalf of CARPENTER and his companies approached elderly individuals (the “Straw Insureds”). The agents promised to provide the Straw Insureds with free life insurance for two years, and, at the end of the two years, would attempt to sell the policies on the life settlement market. In most cases, the agents promised the Straw Insureds that they would receive a portion of any sale proceeds.
The evidence at trial established that CARPENTER, working with insurance agents, caused to be submitted to several insurance providers numerous insurance applications that contained several material misrepresentations, including falsely denying that third-parties were paying the premiums for the insurance, falsely denying discussions about the resale of the policies, falsely inflating the net worth and/or income of the insured, and falsely claiming that the insurance was being purchased for legitimate estate planning-related needs. All applications were signed by CARPENTER’s brother-in-law, who acted as