
GROUP LIFE INSURANCE
NON-QUALIFIED PLANS
Part of sound business practice is to assure that your key people are compensated in a way that rewards their past performance and encourages future performance. There are several tools available to help you provide targeted benefits to you and your key people. It is not unusual for a business to use more than one of these concepts – building a program that helps meet your unique needs. Non-qualified plans are plans that you can use to provide additional benefits to yourself and your key employees and executives. A non-qualified plan is often used along with a qualified plan as an additional benefit to attract and retain key employees. They also offer greater flexibility in who can be covered under the program and are generally easy to establish and administer.
KEY PERSON PROTECTION
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Keep lines of credit open.
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Train another employee for the same specialized skills.
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Assure the completion of ongoing project initiatives.
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Provide access to policy cash value through loans and withdrawals, which your business can use to meet unexpected business expenses*.
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While you can never replace your key people, you can help protect your business from experiencing financial loss at their death.
EXECUTIVE BONUS PLAN
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Employer decides who participates and how much of a bonus each employee will receive.
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Bonus dollars are tax-deductible to the company as compensation to the key employee.
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Simple to adopt with No IRS approval required.
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Premiums are reported as “other compensation” on W-2 and are subject to FICA and FUTA taxes.
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The key employee will own and control the policy and will have access to the riders, potential cash value growth and death benefit that make up the permanent life insurance policy.
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The employee’s out-of-pocket cost is the tax due on the premiums paid by the employer that have been treated as compensation. You may choose to add a cash bonus to the arrangement (a double bonus) to offset the tax amount due.
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Policy cash value grows tax-deferred and may be accessed through withdrawals or policy loans*.
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Death benefit is paid to the insured’s beneficiaries income tax-free.
SPLIT DOLLAR PLAN
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Allows your business to provide select benefits to key employees.
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Key employee receives valuable life insurance protection and potentially the benefits of owning a permanent life insurance policy.
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Business will either be the owner of the policy (the economic benefit arrangement) or will recover the costs of the arrangement (the loan arrangement).
NQ DEFERRED COMPENSATION / SALARY COMPENSATION
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The executive will only pay tax on the benefit when received, allowing the executive to benefit from tax deferred growth.
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The business may informally fund the arrangement with permanent life insurance, providing a source of the funds from both the potential cash value build up and the income tax free death benefit.
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The business will receive a tax deduction on the benefit amounts when they are paid to the executive.
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The business may be highly selective as to who will receive the benefits and how the benefit amounts are defined.