Treasury Looks Anew at Book-Tax Guidance Move Affecting Insurers

The Treasury Department is taking another look at a portion of its preliminary guidance on the corporate book-income tax that could affect insurance companies, a Treasury official said Thursday.

The department is “beginning to appreciate the particular challenges” to the insurance industry of the provision, which disregards a company’s purchase-accounting and pushdown-accounting adjustments in an acquisition for purposes of calculating its corporate alternative minimum tax, said Angela Walitt, a Treasury attorney-advisor.

Treasury hasn’t decided what to do about the provision, but “it is something we’re taking into account,” said Walitt, speaking at a Federal Bar Association insurance-tax seminar in ...