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September 09, 2010

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Department of Insurance

Partial 1035 Exchanges
Broker dealer and agent use only

When last we visited partial 1035 exchanges, the IRS had acquiesced in the Conway case, which said nothing in Code section 1035 prevents someone from doing a tax-free exchange of only part of their annuity. However, the acquiescence left an ominous warning by the IRS not to abuse partial 1035 exchanges.

Now the IRS has issued 2 pieces of guidance, which clarify the treatment of partial 1035 exchanges.

A new Revenue Ruling says that when a person makes a partial 1035 exchange, the basis is divided pro-rata, not income-out-first. For example, suppose a client has a $1,000 cash surrender value annuity with and $800 basis, and he sends $500 of it to another company in a partial 1035 exchange. Since he exchanged half the value of the contract, the new contract takes half the basis. He ends up with 2 contracts with $500 CV and $400 basis. We’re not sure how to pro-rate basis if there are surrender charges.
A new IRS Notice warns that the IRS is not going to let people abuse partial 1035s to withdraw tax-free return of principal from their annuities quicker. The Notice proposes how the IRS might treat an abusive withdrawal after a partial 1035 exchange, and asks the industry to comment.

Here is an example of the abuse they are trying to stop: Client originally has one $50,000 cash value annuity with a $30,000 basis. Since income comes out first, Client knows he has to withdraw all $20,000 of taxable earnings to get to tax-free return of principal. But sneaky Client gets the idea to do a partial 1035 of half the annuity, resulting in 2 annuities with $25,000 CV and $15,000 basis. Then he thinks he can withdraw just $10,000 taxable earnings from one of the annuities to get to tax-free return of principal.

But the IRS wasn’t born yesterday. They see the potential to abuse partial 1035s in this way. They are working on regulations to define this abuse and how they’re going to make it unprofitable. The IRS proposes that they will presume you are abusing the partial 1035 exchange if you withdraw within 2 years. In that case, they may require the client to aggregate the contracts. Using the example above, that would mean that even if Client takes money from just one of his 2 contracts, he’d have to remove the full $20,000 earnings (the aggregated income on both contracts) in order to get tax-free return of principal. Stymied!

Under the IRS proposal, you can rebut the presumption by showing that you didn’t plot all this? That you didn’t contemplate the withdrawal at the time of the partial 1035 exchange. Safe harbor rebuttals might include:

reaching age 59 ½

death

disability

substantially equal payments

divorce

loss of employment

If you can rebut the presumption that you contemplated withdrawing from the annuity within 2 years after the exchange, then you wouldn’t have to aggregate the old and new contracts. You’d only have to drill through the earnings of the one contract that you took the withdrawal from.

This is the taxing scheme that the IRS is toying with right now. They want to know what practitioners think of this, and have asked for comments before they officially publish them as regulations. They said until them, they will look at the “facts and circumstances” of withdrawals from partial 1035s to see if they are abusive.

This material reflects Integrity Life Insurance Company’s understanding of current federal tax laws and contains information of a general nature. The information provided is not intended to be legal or tax advice. Integrity suggests you or your clients consult a tax advisor or attorney as to the applicability of this material or a specific situation.

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