Rich Professionals Barred From Tax Break Find Pension Painkiller

There’s one area where the traditional pension plan is getting new life -- as a tax dodge for wealthy business owners.

Pensions, also known as defined-benefit plans, can be used by doctors, law partners and wealth managers to stash hundreds of thousands of dollars in income a year. By doing so, they’ll get around the income limits Congress created to bar them from a generous new tax break for owners of pass-through entities, who report the firms’ income on their individual tax returns.