Christopher Flanagan

Subscribe to Christopher Flanagan's Posts
Contact:Read more about Christopher Flanagan

On May 26, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court decision and ruled that the IRS could not impose excise tax on certain wholly-foreign retrocessions of insurance. The decision represents a second major victory for Validus, a Bermuda reinsurer. The IRS…

Read More Validus Wins Round Two: Wholly-Foreign Retrocessions Not Subject to Federal Excise Tax

The Internal Revenue Service late last week issued proposed regulations addressing what constitutes the “active conduct of an insurance business” for purposes of the passive foreign investment company (“PFIC”) rules. These regulations were issued in part in response to the perceived problem of hedge funds using offshore reinsurance companies to…
Read More Proposed Tax Regulations Issued on PFIC Rules for Insurance Companies

Companies looking to establish insurance coverage, especially in situations involving a captive type of arrangement, will, as always, need to focus on the qualification of the coverage as insurance for U.S. federal income tax purposes. While this traditionally involves an analysis of the risk shifting and risk distribution aspects of…
Read More Internal Revenue Service finds Contracts protecting against Foreign Currency Fluctuations not to be Insurance

Following up on our earlier Insurance and Reinsurance Blog on this matter (the relevant post can be found here), the Internal Revenue Service today filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of the recent United States District Court decision in the Validus case (holding that the excise tax imposed on the foreign insurance/reinsurance of U.S. risks by Section 4371 of the Internal Revenue Code does not apply to retrocession policies). …
Read More Internal Revenue Service Files Appeal in the Validus Excise Tax Case

As previously discussed in our Insurance and Reinsurance Blog (the relevant post can be found here), the United States District Court for the District of Columbia recently ruled that the excise tax imposed on the foreign insurance/reinsurance of U.S. risks by Section 4371 of the Internal Revenue Code does not apply to retrocessions. Validus, a Bermuda reinsurer, filed the refund suit in this case with respect to excise taxes it had paid on nine retrocession policies. …
Read More Validus District Court Decision: Retrocessions Not Taxable as Reinsurance Under Section 4371 of the Code

Earlier in 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced a series of tax reforms in his budget bill (the “Bill”) which is currently being addressed by the state legislature. …
Read More Potential New York Legislation to Introduce Tax Changes With Respect To Captive Insurers

October 30, 2013

8:30 AM EST

Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP
750 Lexington Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10022 …
Read More Please Join Us – Edwards Wildman’s 2013 ILS Roundtable: The Convergence of Insurance and the Capital Markets

Continuing the controversy first discussed in our earlier article (a copy of which can be accessed here), uncertainty remains over whether the self-procurement tax and regulatory provisions of the Non-admitted and Reinsurance Reform Act, enacted as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, apply to non-admitted insurance procured from a captive insurance company. …
Read More Does NRRA Capture Captives?

Legislation was introduced this week to prevent foreign-controlled insurers operating in the United States from reducing their U.S. tax bill by reinsuring with their non-U.S. affiliates.
Read More House and Senate Introduce Bills Deferring Tax Deductions for Foreign Insurers