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It has been over eight years since the investment-linked insurance policy was introduced in Taiwan. This new policy opened a brand-new insurance market and, however, brought some dispute between insurers and insured. Two major issues were concerned. First, should the income tax of investment earnings coming from separate accounts be collected? Second, should the payment of investment-linked insurance be regarded as estate property of the decedent? Further study on these disputes will be discussed in this paper. The appearance of investment-linked insurance arises from the lower market interest rate that leads to the lower assumed interest rate and higher premium in insurance market. The applicants therefore cannot buy adequate life insurance due to high premium, and the insurers, considering the getting higher operating cost on fixed assumed interest rate, transfer the investment sovereign in traditional policy into the insurance applicants via investment policy. Differed from FSC insurance bureau, IRS is finding the investment-linked insurance as a financing commodity rather than an insurance commodity. Considering the practical side and referring to related literatures, in this paper, we go for a contention that investment-linked insurance is essentially an insurance commodity under specified condition. Some suggestions to FSC are concluded in this paper. First, adequate standards must be established towards investment-linked insurance, which makes tax concessions available with regards to Insurance Law, Income Tax Act, and Estate-and-gift Tax Act. Second, when the investment income in separate accounts is received, tax must be collected under specified condition. Third, Ministry of Finance is suggested to make proposals for amending the law, specific to laws about tax concessions and exclusion clauses of tax avoidance.
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