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Nature of Suit Code: 870
Nature of Suit: Tax Suits
Cause of Action: 

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 15-2441 

VEE’S MARKETING, INC., 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 3:13-cv-00481-bbc— Barbara B. Crabb, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JANUARY 6, 2016— DECIDED MARCH 14, 2016 

____________________ 

 Before POSNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and 

PALLMEYER, District Judge.

*

 POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff, a broker of fresh onions (see “Vee’s Marketing, Inc.,” http://veesmarketing.com/ 

(visited March 14, 2016, as were the other websites cited in 

this opinion)), is a Subchapter S corporation wholly owned 

 

*

 Hon. Rebecca R. Pallmeyer of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by 

designation. 

Case: 15-2441 Document: 32 Filed: 03/14/2016 Pages: 6
2 No. 15-2441 

by Scott Vee. The corporation’s income is therefore reported 

on Mr. Vee’s own tax returns. Since he effectively is the corporation, we’ll call the plaintiff Vee rather than Vee’s Marketing. 

 Vee appeals from the dismissal of his suit for a refund of 

penalties that the Internal Revenue Service had assessed because he took deductions for contributions to a welfare benefit plan from 2004 through 2007 but didn’t file a report (Form 

8886, Reportable Transaction Disclosure Statement) with the 

Internal Revenue Service disclosing his participation in the 

plan. The IRS requires such disclosure because it deemed 

IRS Notice 95-34 to require a taxpayer to report his participation in this type of plan. The IRS assessed and collected from 

Vee a penalty of $10,000 a year for each of the four years in 

which he’d failed to file the report, for a total of $40,000. Vee 

sues for the return of this money. See 26 U.S.C. §§ 6532(a), 

7422(a). At the conclusion of a bench trial the district judge 

ruled for the government. 

 In a separate suit, pending in the Tax Court, the government is arguing that the deductions that Vee took for his 

contributions to the welfare benefit plan were improper. But 

that issue is not presented by the present suit, which is limited to the disclosure issue. 

 Vee was required to file Form 8886 if he participated in 

what is called a “listed transaction,” defined as a transaction 

identical or at least substantially similar to a transaction that 

the Internal Revenue Service has labeled a listed transaction 

in published guidance to taxpayers, meaning a transaction 

intended to avoid federal income tax liability unlawfully. 

See 26 U.S.C. § 6707A; 26 C.F.R. §§ 1.6011-4(a), (b)(2), 

(c)(3)(i)(A), (d); IRS Notice 2000-15, 2000-1 C.B. 826. 

Case: 15-2441 Document: 32 Filed: 03/14/2016 Pages: 6
No. 15-2441 3 

 A company called CJA and Associates (we’ll call it CJA) 

advertises that it “specializes in the design and marketing of 

innovative insurance products and employee benefit plans 

for the small business and estate planning markets.” CJA & 

Associates, www.cjamarketing.com/. One of the company’s 

products was an employee benefit plan called the “CJA Affiliated Employers Health & Welfare Trust,” also known as 

the “Prepare Plan.” See CJA & Associates, “Prepare Plan,” 

https://cjamarketing.com/prepare_plan.html. We’ll just call it 

the plan. CJA marketed it as a “10 or more employer plan” 

that qualifies for favorable tax treatment. See Thomas J. 

Handler, “Multiple Employer Welfare Benefit Plans Have 

Advantages for Employees and Executives,” 3 J. Taxation of 

Employee Benefits, May/June 1995, p. 10. Contributions to 

such a plan are deductible from federal income tax unless—

and this brings us to the crux of the case—the plan “maintains experience-rating arrangements with respect to individual employers.” 26 U.S.C. § 419A(f)(6). 

 Experience rating in this context means that rather than 

pooling the risks borne and contributions made by all the 

employees of the different employer members of the plan in 

determining benefits, plan benefits are determined separately for each employer in accordance with that employer’s 

contributions to the plan. 26 C.F.R. §§ 1.419A(f)(6)-1(b)(1), 

(d)(3). If an employer’s contributions go to purchase life insurance policies that accumulate cash value because the contributions are invested, the contributions are not tax deductible, id. § 1.419A(f)(6)-1(f), Example 6, because such a plan is 

mainly an investment vehicle rather than an insurance policy. See “10 or More Employer Plans,” 68 Fed. Reg. 42254, 

42254–56 (July 17, 2003). 

Case: 15-2441 Document: 32 Filed: 03/14/2016 Pages: 6
4 No. 15-2441 

CJA’s marketing materials describe contributions to the 

plan sold to Vee as intended to be used either to finance preand post-retirement life insurance benefits—that is, provide 

money to the insured’s beneficiaries—or to provide retirement medical benefits to the insured. Vee’s plan document 

contained no provision for medical benefits, however, and 

was oriented less to funding death benefits than to providing cash for him or his beneficiaries to use as they pleased. 

He deducted the contributions from his taxable income, and 

that’s where Notice 95-34 bit. The Internal Revenue Service 

contends that Vee’s plan is a “listed transaction” (the term 

does not appear in Notice 95-34, but a subsequent Notice, 

2000-15, states that the transaction described in Notice 95-34 

is indeed a listed transaction), so classified because it involves plan contributions that exceed the cost of the term life 

insurance (one-year insurance that yields proceeds only if 

the employee dies during that year, and that has no cash 

value), which is all that the contributions buy. The excess of 

contributions over expense leaves the plan administrator 

with a surplus with which to provide other benefits to the 

plan’s beneficiaries. 

And like the transaction described in Notice 95-34, Vee’s 

plan is experience rated, meaning as we said that the employer’s contributions are allocated to his own employees. 

This feature too is inconsistent with the premise of a 10 or 

more employers benefit plan that contributions and risks are 

to be pooled. In effect though not in name Vee’s plan is what 

is called a “universal life insurance contract.” Such a contract 

provides both current life insurance and a savings feature. 

Vee’s contribution to his CJA plan in its first year was 

$165,000, but the cost of the term life insurance bought with 

that money was only $5,400, the difference (minus some fees 

Case: 15-2441 Document: 32 Filed: 03/14/2016 Pages: 6
No. 15-2441 5 

paid to CJA and to the insurance company maintaining the 

account) being placed in an “accumulation account” (also 

referred to as a “reserve account”). The account earns interest for and is the property of the employee-contributor—

Vee. 

 When later Vee strategically terminated his participation 

in the plan, the plan used $147,000 from the reserve account 

to buy a paid-up life insurance policy for Vee with a face 

value of $400,000. That was the amount payable upon Vee’s 

death to his beneficiaries, but it wasn’t all that the reserve 

account could be used for. CJA told its customers that the 

paid-up policy could be sold, and it even helped find buyers. 

As explained in Ohio National Life Assurance Corp. v. Davis, 

803 F.3d 904, 908 (7th Cir. 2015), it is lawful in many states 

(including Vee’s state, Wisconsin, although generally not until five years after the issuance of the policy, see Wis. Stat. 

§ 632.69(12)) to purchase the beneficial interest in an existing 

policy on the life of the insured. Vee thus could if he wanted 

sell the beneficial interest in his post-retirement life insurance policy. He would be taxed on his income from the sale 

but he would not have been taxed on the income that had 

gone into his accumulation reserve and thus financed his acquisition of the life insurance policy that he then sold. 

 Vee was obtaining a tax deduction not only for payments that he made for the purchase of term life insurance 

but also for payments that he could use to fund benefits that 

do not qualify as health or welfare benefits, even though the 

plan is a health and welfare benefit plan. As explained in 

Prosser v. Commissioner, 777 F.3d 582, 585 (2d Cir. 2015), quoting Curcio v. Commissioner, 689 F.3d 217, 226 (2d Cir. 2012), 

such contributions are “a mechanism by which [owners of 

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6 No. 15-2441 

participating businesses—Vee is such an owner] could divert 

company profits, tax-free, to themselves, under the guise of 

cash-laden insurance policies that were purportedly for the 

benefit of the businesses, but were actually for petitioners’ 

personal gain.” If Vee keeps rather than sells his life insurance, upon his death the benefits will accrue to the beneficiaries designated in the insurance policy. Any benefit plan 

that allows Vee to convert tax-free contributions to guaranteed payments for either himself (the owner—an “employee” only in name) or his beneficiaries is a listed transaction 

within the meaning of Notice 95-34. 

The CJA plan was enough like the questionable plan described in the notice to require listed-transaction notice to 

the IRS on Form 8886. Vee failed to file the form and therefore was properly penalized to the tune of $10,000 a year for 

the four years in which he took tax deductions without reporting his participation in the plan. 

AFFIRMED

Case: 15-2441 Document: 32 Filed: 03/14/2016 Pages: 6