TheoWire: Articles
TheoWire: Articles
In 2002, Ellen Schultz and I wrote a series of stories about how companies profit from insurance policies taken out on employees, former employees and retirees. What started as a clever tax dodge soon mushroomed until some companies had policies on hundreds of thousands of workers.
Janitor’s insurance series
The Wall Street Journal
How companies profited on employee lives
• Companies Profit on Workers' Deaths
Through 'Dead Peasants' Insurance --- The article that launched the series. | The Wall Street Journal, 19 April 2002, A1
• How Life Insurance Morphed
Into a Corporate Finance Tool --- The final story in the series, exploring a history of state and federal lobbying, and tax shelters gone wild | The Wall Street Journal, 30 December 2002, A1
• Tax Benefits of Life Insurance
Help to Boost the Bottom Line --- A primer on just how companies have profited by taking out life-insurance policies on their employees | The Wall Street Journal, 30 December 2002
• Retirement & employee benefits coverage (written with Ellen E. Schultz) | The Wall Street Journal, 2002-2008
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(See also the Internet Archive cache of George Polk Award articles from 2002.)
janitor’s insurance highlights