Event: ProVisors Panel on Negotiation
Venue: Calabasas Country Club
Location: Calabasas, Los Angeles, Ca
Speaker: Attorney Douglas Schreiber of Anker, Hymes & Schreiber, LLP
Transcription:
I come into the negotiation process typically in a slightly different situation. Mark is looking to build a relationship. By the time I usually get involved, I’m looking to get rid of a relationship, quite honestly:
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This is part of fourth section of Anker Reed HSC’s blog series entitled “To Incorporate or Not to Incorporate? That is the Question” regarding the corporate retirement plan.
A corporate retirement plan may include a pension plan, profit-sharing plan or combination of both. A pension plan is “established and maintained by an employer primarily to provide systematically for the payment of definitely determinable benefits to his employees, or their beneficiaries, over a period of years (usually for life) after retirement.” (Blacks Law Dictionary)
A profit-sharing plan is established and maintained by an employer to provide for the participation in the profits of the company by the employees or their beneficiaries. A corporate retirement plan may be qualified or non-qualified in order to take advantage of the tax benefits available. If the corporate retirement plan is qualified according to § 401, special tax status attaches. First, the amount of the contribution will be deductible to the corporation under §404(a)(1) for pension plans and § 404(a)(3) for profit-sharing plans. Second, “Any amount actually distributed to any distributed by any employees’ trust described in section 401(a) which is exempt from tax under section 501(a) shall be taxable to the distributee, in the taxable year of the distributee in which distributed”. (§ 402 Supp., 2000) Therefore, § 402 provides for tax deferral until the corporate retirement plan distributes to the beneficiary. For example, if a corporation makes a $10,000 contribution to a corporate retirement plan in the name of the individual employee, the corporation will be allowed to deduct this amount from taxable income and the individual will not be taxed on this amount in the year of the contribution! The contribution is placed into the corporate retirement account where it appreciates tax-deferred; the individual will be taxed on the amount when the retirement account distributes its corpus to the individual participant.
For the noncorporate taxpayer, usually a member of a union pension plan, the only deductible retirement contribution available would be an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). The deductibility of IRA contributions is limited when the individual is an active participant in a retirement plan maintained by an employer. For such individuals the IRA contribution is phased-out at certain AGI levels ($31,000-$41,000 for 1999).
Therefore, the noncorporate taxpayer may not receive the current tax benefit of the contribution because the contribution will be made with after-tax earnings. The corporate retirement plan has no comparable limitation.
* For specific inquiries regarding a business legal matter that you may have, you are contact our Business Lawyer in Los Angeles.
This is part 2 of Anker Reed HSC’s blog series entitled “To Incorporate or Not to Incorporate? That is the Question”.
“The ‘loanout’ company is a ‘Hollywood’ term for a device that has received wide acceptance among doctors and lawyers-the personal service corporation.”(Klinger, 1986) “In the typical loan-out, an individual service provider forms a corporation in which she is the sole or majority shareholder as well as the sole or principal employee. The corporation then negotiates with a third party-the ‘borrower’–to ‘lend’ the services of the controlling shareholder-employee for a price.” (LaFrance, 1995) The third party will then pay the amount of the contract to the loan-out corporation, which will then pay a salary to the shareholder/employee. A studio or production company will usually not contract with the loan-out company unless it specifically expresses that the contract is for the services of the entertainer and the entertainer has signed the contract on his or her own behalf. A lawsuit involving Kim Basinger and the producers of the feature film “Boxing Helena” addressed this issue.
The contract for Ms. Basinger’s services was between the production company, Main Line Pictures, Inc. and Ms. Basinger’s loan-out company, Mighty Wind Productions, Inc. Ms. Basinger signed the contract as an agent for her loan-out company, but nowhere did she sign on her own behalf.’ The contract was between Main Line and Mighty Wind; Ms. Basinger, as an individual, was not a party.’ Therefore, it appeared that it was not Ms. Basinger who was obligated to perform on the contract, but it was Mighty Wind who was so obligated.
In an unpublished opinion by the California Court of Appeal, it was stated, “If the contract is only with Mighty Wind, then only Mighty Wind can be liable for breach of the contract.”
* For specific inquiries regarding a business legal matter that you may have, you are welcome to visit our Business Disputes legal services page.
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