Captive Insurance
Most accountants and small business owners are unfamiliar with a great way to reduce taxes and expenses. By either creating or sharing "a captive insurance company", substantial tax and cost savings willbenefit the small business owner. Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies take advantage of some kind of captive insurance company arrangement. They set up their own insurance companies to provide coverage when they think outside insurers are charging too much, or coverage is simply unavailable. The parentcompany creates a captive so that it has a self-financing option for buying insurance. The captive then either retains the risk of providing insurance or pays reinsurers (companies that reinsure insurers) to take the risk.
Captive Insurance Plans, Want to Get Audited? - HG.org
Captive Insurance Plans, Want to Get Audited? - HG.org
When one scheme fails it isn’t long before a resourceful promoter comes up with a different product. Inevitably promoters find some lawyer or accountant to draft a favorable opinion letter and a new industry is born. In a few years, however, the IRS catches up and declares the arrangement to be a listed transaction and abusive tax shelter. As an expert witness I have never lost a case in this field. It is easy to beat the deep pockets of the insurance companies who provide product to these plans. Even though they have business owners sign fraudulent disclaimers saying that the owners will get their own tax advice. These disclaimers are then used when the inevitable happens, the IRS audits and the business owner sues the insurance company.
The latest entries seeking to find a way to make life insurance premiums deductible is a small business captive insurance company or CIC.
The insurance industry have been conjuring ways to make life insurance premiums tax deductible. Over the years we have seen many schemes that have failed IRS scrutiny. Welfare benefit plans set up under I.R.C. section 419, 412(e) plans and Producer Owned Reinsurance Companies (PORCs) are all common examples.
When one scheme fails it isn’t long before a resourceful promoter comes up with a different product. Inevitably promoters find some lawyer or accountant to draft a favorable opinion letter and a new industry is born. In a few years, however, the IRS catches up and declares the arrangement to be a listed transaction and abusive tax shelter. As an expert witness I have never lost a case in this field. It is easy to beat the deep pockets of the insurance companies who provide product to these plans. Even though they have business owners sign fraudulent disclaimers saying that the owners will get their own tax advice. These disclaimers are then used when the inevitable happens, the IRS audits and the business owner sues the insurance company.
The latest entries seeking to find a way to make life insurance premiums deductible is a small business captive insurance company or CIC.
IRS Issues Final Regulations for Material Advisors, Accountants, Attorneys and Insurance Agents - HG.org
IRS Issues Final Regulations for Material Advisors, Accountants, Attorneys and Insurance Agents - HG.org
If you sold, advised on or had anything to do with a listed transaction you will be fined by the IRS. For those that bought listed transactions like, 419 welfare benefit plans or 412i plans, you have been or will also be fined.
On July 30, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations regarding the imposition of penalties under Internal Revenue Code section 6707 against material advisors who fail to file true, complete or timely disclosure returns with respect to reportable or listed transactions. The effective date of the final regulations is July 31, 2014.
No Shelter Here: Beware of These Insurance Plans | Remodeling
No Shelter Here: Beware of These Insurance Plans | Remodeling
During the past few years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has fined many business owners hundreds of thousands of dollars for participating in several particular types of insurance plans.
The 412(i), 419, captive insurance, and section 79 plans were marketed as a way for small-business owners to set up retirement, welfare benefit plans, or other tax-deductible programs while leveraging huge tax savings, but the IRS put most of them on a list of abusive tax shelters, listed transactions, or similar transactions, etc., and has more recently focused audits on them. Many accountants are unaware of the issues surrounding these plans, and many big-name insurance companies are still encouraging participation in them.
Instructions for Form 8918
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8918.pdf
The link will take you to Instructions for Form 8918, or in other words, a Material Advisor Disclosure Statement.
The link will take you to Instructions for Form 8918, or in other words, a Material Advisor Disclosure Statement.
Insurance Agents: Help for those who sold 419 and 412i plans.
Insurance Agents: Help for those who sold 419 and 412i plans.
Our team of experienced consulting "tax attorneys", CPAs, and "insurance experts" specializing in 412i" and "419 "IRS
audits" that resulted from plans you sold to your clients, mainly "419 plans", "412i plans", "captive insurance" plans
and "Section 79" plans as well as other similar "employee benefit plans" or "welfare benefit plans" that the IRS is
targeting as "abusive tax shelters".
Our firm has been successful in "defending life insurance agents" and "material advisors" who have participated in
the sale of these "benefit plans".
Our team of experienced consulting "tax attorneys", CPAs, and "insurance experts" specializing in 412i" and "419 "IRS
audits" that resulted from plans you sold to your clients, mainly "419 plans", "412i plans", "captive insurance" plans
and "Section 79" plans as well as other similar "employee benefit plans" or "welfare benefit plans" that the IRS is
targeting as "abusive tax shelters".
Our firm has been successful in "defending life insurance agents" and "material advisors" who have participated in
the sale of these "benefit plans".
The Importance of SEO
By: Sarah Rotter
In this new age of unlimited, accessible information, it has become common place for a business to try to use the internet as a cheap and easy resource to advertise to potential customers. Putting up a website is a fairly easy task, but once it is up on the web, there is no guarantee that it will be seen unless you pay to advertise on a specific sight. Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo use an intricate algorithm to scan the vast network of websites to optimize the results for the searcher, and if the website for a business doesn’t have the proper content, it will not be shown in the search results even though said business might be relevant to what the potential customer is searching. SEOs are important because through it Businesses get found.
The first thing to understand is the potential customers, and the potential keywords they are going to use on their websites. “90-95% of businesses… miss out on a huge opportunity because they go after key words that are too competitive or use browser keywords” (SEO Sauce 2013). Longer more specific key words are a lot more effect than the short generic keywords because it makes a website easier to locate. Another important tip is to consider misspellings. If you are advertising “Furniture Repair”, include “Furnature” in the tags because typos are quite common.
Another important SEO factor are links. Links matter because a link is usually considered a recommendation from the site. Links from trustworthy sites have more weight in the “algorithm recipe”.
Finally, reputation is important. “Sites with consistent record of fresh engaging content and reliable links can be considered ‘rising stars’ on the internet” (Common Craft 2013). Just like with anything else in life, you get out what you out in. If you keep up with the site and consistently update it, people will take notice, as well as the search engines.
You have to be able to track your site when you start to use SEO. Being able to see your progress is very important. There is no point in trying to improve your site if you can’t see any of the results. Also patience is a virtue in the practice. You might not see results for a few months, so keep in mind that these things take time.
When in doubt, go with a professional SEO service.
"Getting SEO wrong can mean more than simply not getting the rankings you want. It can mean being penalised and not showing in the search results at all. Add the wrong character to your .htaccess file and your site might not even load. Do the same to your robots.txt and it might never get indexed. In some cases, the cost of fixing your own errors could far outweigh the modest investment needed to get it right in the first place" (Vanderkolk 2014).
It is much more worth it to leave this kind of work up to people with experience if you really want your site to be noticed.
Sources:
Common Craft, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF515-0Tduk, 2013.
Seosauce, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBNOoNBx_nQ, 2013.
Vanderkolk, "Sydney SEO – Why You Shouldn’t Try to Go It Alone" 2014.
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