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- THE WEEK, Page 18SOCIETYDeath and Taxes
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- New IRS proposals help the terminally ill cash in life insurance
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- One rarely receives, or expects, compassion from the Internal
- Revenue Service. But when it comes to the terminally ill,
- especially those suffering from AIDS, the IRS is showing that
- it may have a heart after all. The agency has issued proposed
- regulations on ways insurance companies can provide accelerated
- death benefits to policyholders, tax free. Accelerated death
- benefits are in growing demand as AIDS patients seek to cash in
- their life-insurance policies, either to pay for treatments or
- to fulfill dying wishes. With health costs skyrocketing,
- accelerated death benefits are also a desired option for other
- terminally ill patients. Insurance companies had been operating
- without clear guidance about the tax status of such payments.
- Both the insurance industry and AIDS groups are praising the new
- proposals as an important step toward clearing up the situation.
- The IRS hopes to put the new rules in place by the middle of
- next year; hearings on the issue are set for March.
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