Many of the listed transactions that can get your clients into trouble with the IRS are exotic shelters that relatively few practitioners ever encounter. When was the last time you saw someone file a return as a Guamanian trust (Notice 2000-61)? On the other hand, a few listed transactions concern relatively common employee benefit plans the IRS has deemed tax-avoidance schemes or otherwise abusive. Perhaps some of the most likely to crop up, especially in small business returns, are arrangements purporting to allow deductibility of premiums paid for life insurance under a welfare benefit plan.
Some of these abusive employee benefit plans are represented as satisfying section 419 of the Code, which sets limits on purposes and balances of “qualified asset accounts” for such benefits, but purport to offer deductibility of contributions without any corresponding income. Others attempt to take advantage of exceptions to qualified asset account limits, such as sham union plans that try to exploit the exception for separate welfare benefit funds under collective-bargaining agreements provided by IRC § 419A(f)(5). Others try to take advantage of exceptions for plans serving 10 or more employers, once popular under section 419A(f)(6). More recently, one may encounter plans relying on section 419(e) and, perhaps, defined-benefit pension plans established pursuant to the former section 412(i) (still so-called, even though the subsection has since been redesignated section 412(e)(3)).
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