Standardized Tax Opinions

It was pointed out to us the other day that many life insurance companies offer a standardized tax opinion as part of their marketing of their life insurance products, especially for private placement (PPLI, PPVUL) and variable life insurance products. If you are in the business of selling standard policies, whether those policies are PPLI, PPVUL or Variable Life policies then it is possible that a one size fits all tax opinion can be offered as a way to promote the sale of a life insurance company’s products. For those people interested in purchasing such a standardized product a standardized tax opinion may help the insurance company to close the sale. But it is somewhat of a wonder how a tax opinion can be drafted before the solution to the high met worth client’s long term planning objectives and goals is decided on and agreed to.

At CastleRE, however, the standardize approach will not do. The high net worth client and the client’s advisors who are really looking for a true customized solution to the client’s long term planning objectives are not interested in a cookie cutter approach. They want an approach that provides a real and long lasting solution and a solution that has been custom designed to be consistent with the client’s unique long term estate and financial planning goals and objectives. Yes, the approach decided upon to solve those issues needs to be tax compliant, but tax compliance is something that is done over the life of a true custom contract or any long term estate or financial plan. The client deserves ongoing compliance and to be served by an advisory team than will work to help assure the best long term result for the client.

Enough said.