In some rare good news out of the US Treasury department we finally obtained new, final regulations on the application of IRC code section 1.469B-6 trusts. While at first read a lot of structured settlement professionals will be getting all excited and thinking that this is the long awaited ruling from Treasury on 468B qualified settlement funds and single claimant cases, it is in fact related to the issue of escrow accounts, trusts and other funds used during deferred exchanges, such as a section 1031 like-kind exchange.

However, while this is not really relevant to the mass tort and multi-claimant aspect of the structured settlement industry, it is of intense interest to the people over at Allstate and for those of us who are actively in the structured sales business. As we all know this area has languished as a result of a very slow build up in knowledge and familiarity with these annuities, but with a very likely capital gains tax increase on the horizon with the 2009 U.S. Congress the viability of tax deferral of capital asset sales using a structured sale annuity will be of far greater interest to tax payers and tax experts.

The area of 1031 like kind exchanges is a further subset and niche in that market, but one with immense potential for those settlement professionals willing to invest the time, talent, marketing and process to make it a new line of business. My day job at Wahlstrom & Associates has been focused on this area for over two years and these clarifications should be welcome news in marketing to qualified intermediaries and others who inhabit the 1031 exchange world.

I will be hosting Attorney Robert Wood, principal of Wood & Porter of San Francisco and the lead commentator on The Tax Law Channel, our newest channel here on LBN. If you want to know more about this ruling, obtain a pdf copy of it or investigate how you can start to work in this market, give me a call or send me an email after our podcast later this week.

Again, it's not the long awaited 468b single claimant ruling, but it's almost as good if you are in the structured sales market.