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Retirement plans are described as “top-heavy” when business owners have more than 60% of the overall balance. And this meant many companies were faced with the following dilemma: Do I set the waiting period for my plan to one-year and make my new employees unhappy, or...

Get this! A rule on the books stated that if a married couple had two completely separate businesses and they had a minor child, those business would be considered linked for retirement plan purposes. If they did not have a minor child, those businesses would not be...

Megan, The HR Director of one of our client companies called to discuss one of their low-income employees. She wanted to see if there was any way to maximize their benefits short of giving them a fat raise. “Savers credit is a little-known and underutilized credit for...

James, an HR director, called me with a serious question. “I have a few employees who I think have fallen on hard times. They haven’t told me what’s going on but they’re asking questions about what the penalties are for withdrawing money from their retirement plans,...

Juan called me the other day with an interesting problem: “We’ve been hiring a lot of young people right out of college,” he explained. “We try to set them up with our company retirement plan but they’re all drowning in debt. They’re declining to participate because...

“David, What’s SECURE 2.0 and how does it affect my company’s retirement plan?” The rules change and my phone rings. That’s just how things work around here. “Glad you asked, Sarah. I’ll take care of the details for you of course, but in a nutshell SECURE 2.0 is new...

Two business owners, Jim and Bob, met for lunch.“Very cool how you’ve grown your company so fast,” said Bob. “Seventy-five employees! You had what—five—just a year ago?”“Thanks,” said Jim, “But that growth comes with a cost. Our retirement plan used to get us over...

An employee leaves your company and they still have a balance under your retirement plan. Years go by and the former employee cannot be located. Why is that your problem? If they changed their address and never told you, why should you as the former employer be...

Here’s another one from the vault: A prospective client called me with a common question: “I’m Joe. My accountant says the maximum contribution a business owner can defer into a retirement plan is 25% of their earned income. But a friend told me that some...

“David, this is Juan. I’m a business owner and I just bought out one of my competitors. You’ve been managing their retirement plan and they had good things to say about you so I’m calling to ask for your help. We already have a 401K for our business so do I just...

Here’s a question I hear all the time: Can you exclude bonuses from the definition of compensation for purposes of the employer matching contribution? Why would you exclude certain compensation from a company contribution like a match? With respect to bonuses, well...

One of my clients, Barry, called the other day with a common question: “I was late submitting our weekly payroll contributions. Is that a big deal? I calculated the loss of earnings—about ten dollars, filed Form 5330, and paid $1.50 in excise tax. But that all seemed...