Dead
Peasant Insurance
also known as "Dead Janitors
Insurance" |
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How much are you worth dead
to your company? |
| Wall Street Journal: "The
practice is as widespread as it is little-known. Millions
of current and former workers at hundreds of large companies are
thus worth a great deal to their employers dead, as well as
alive, yielding billions of dollars in tax breaks over the
years, as well as a steady stream of tax-free death benefits." |
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Dead Peasant
Policy: From the Washington
Post Primer, April 20, 2002 |
| • Industry
slang for insurance policies taken out by corporations on
the lives of thousands of their rank-and-file employees,
usually without workers' knowledge or consent. |
| • An
insurance product that allows corporations to earn
tax-free investment income on money put aside for retiree
health and pension benefits |
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According to articles in the Houston Chronicle and Wall
Street Journal last week, a questionable gambit used by at
least 100 large corporations to boost profits by taking
advantage of the tax-shelter features of life insurance. |
| • The
source of an estimated $6 billion in lost tax revenue to
the Treasury each year and the subject of several pending
tax court cases. |
| • A
product actively marketed by the insurance industry as an
"attractive, off-balance-sheet asset." |
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