When Reinsurance Group of America reported its fourth-quarter earnings Monday, it also made a projection for 2012's profit. Its guidance, though, came with a political contingency. The news release says:

Finally, the guidance assumes that Congress will pass an extension of the active financing exception legislation this year. If that legislation is not extended for any reason, the company estimates its tax provision would increase by approximately $15 million for the year, reducing earnings by approximately $0.20 per diluted share.

The active financing exception is one of many so-called tax "extenders," or temporary tax breaks that Congress creates and then usually extends just before they expire. Better-known ones include credits for research and development and alternative energy.  and More than 60 such loopholes expired at the end of 2011, including the one that benefits RGA.

According to a Washington Post story from 2010, the active financing exception had a $9 billion pricetag the last time it was extended. The Post explains how the tax break works:

Companies have long been allowed to defer U.S. taxes on most money earned by their overseas subsidiaries, but financial activities have traditionally been left out of this exemption because such transactions are too easy to shift offshore ....

But the business lobby gained an exception in 1997 for "active financing," which includes some kinds of insurance and banking income as well as income from financing the sale of products overseas.

At a hearing today, Reuters reports, Sen. Orrin Hatch said that  tax-extender legislation is probably dead until after this November's elections.

Having valuable tax breaks expire every year or two is, of course, a gravy train for lobbyists, and RGA seems to think its lobbyists can bring home the gravy. Jack Lay, chief financial officer of the Chesterfield, Mo., company, said in a conference call today:

Our lobbyists are pretty confident that in fact that legislation will take place. I guess we're a little more conservative. So it remains to be seen but we are encouraged by what the lobbyists that we pay for their opinions. We're encouraged by what they tell us.

Chief Executive Greig Woodring added:

But even our lobbyists have said that it's, if it's going to happen it's probably going to happen after the election in November. It's not going to happen early in the year.

So there you have it. The smart money seems to think that Congress will come back in November or December, after an election season in which corporate welfare is likely to be attacked vociferously, and vote in a package of tax breaks that benefit a few large companies.

It doesn't have to be that way, of course. Calvin Johnson, a law professor at the University of Texas, told the Senate Finance Committee that it should stop extending 13 of the extenders, including the active-financing exception. In prepared testimony for today's hearing, Johnson said:

They expired at the end of 2011 and good riddance. Rejoice in the news that they are dead.