With an immediate annuity, which has little or no accumulation phase, payments must begin to the annuitant (the person on whose life expectancy the contract is based) within 12 months of establishing the policy. A deferred annuity also has an annuitization or payout phase. The primary purposes of mister are to defer income taxes until a future date and to provide an income stream. Annuities, like life insurance, can consist of an owner who is different than the annuitant the insured in a life insurance contract. If the annuities variable life owner and annuitant are different, it is the annuitant that will receive the income stream, not the owner, unless the two are the same individual.
Any death benefit the beneficiary receives will be taxed as ordinary income to the beneficiary.
When you buy tax deferred variable annuity, its earnings are tax-deferred until you begin withdrawing the money. In other words, it works the same way as a nondeductible IRA.
But the guaranteed payments promised in annuities variable life contract come at a price: providers charge a variety of fees for the management and insurance of the annuity. An annuity has two phases: the accumulation phase and the distribution phase.
During the distribution phase, you can elect to receive a lump sum or you can annuitize. Annuitizing means you turn your simmer into a stream of monthly checks for life or for a chosen certain period of time. The security of knowing you'll get income for a specified period, or for life, is one of the real advantages of annuitizing. Distributions and withdrawals are generally taxed as income. An annuity consists of an insurance wrapper and a subaccount. The subaccount is simply the annuity's underlying investment - typically a mutual fund. The insurance wrapper is the more complicated part of the annuity. There are two broad types of annuities: fixed and variable. The variable annuity handbook income is more conservative choice, provides a set return backed by an insurance company, much as a bank provides a stated rate of return on a certificate of deposit. Although the rate of return varies somewhat depending on prevailing interest rates, the return is still more stable than variable annuity fraud. A variable annuity invests in stocks, bonds, or money market funds, depending upon the type of subaccount you choose.
For example, Lincoln Financial Direct's eAnnuity offers 14 subaccounts, ranging from its own conservative Money Market Fund to the Fidelity Investments' Equity-Income Fund to the riskier Lynch & Mayer's Aggressive Growth Fund.
The amount of return depends on the actual return of the subaccount investment. If the payout phase of 2007 tax deferred annuity is for life, it pays the owner during his or her entire lifetime. The payments cease when he or she dies. If an annuity's payout is "certain," it pays the owner for a specified period, and if the owner dies before the period ends, then a beneficiary receives the payments until the certain term ends.