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Let's embark on a journey through the world of retirement accounts tailored for the modern entrepreneur in this episode of the Teaching Tax Flow podcast. We jump right into how to best create a robust financial future, while cleverly navigating through various retirement plans.
In the multi-faceted discussion, Chris tactfully breaks down retirement account options, from the basic traditional IRA to the ultra-advanced defined benefit plan. Emphasizing the necessity of planning and foresight, the podcast provides a rare glimpse into the intricacies of tax-advantaged savings for self-driven business minds. With each retirement solution dissected, the episode carves out a clear understanding, empowering entrepreneurs to make informed decisions for their long-term prosperity.
Key Takeaways:
- Traditional and Roth IRAs serve as basic retirement account options, allowing individual contributions up to certain limits based on age and income.
- SEP IRAs offer an advanced option for self-employed individuals or entrepreneurs without employees, enabling higher contribution limits and tax deductions.
- SIMPLE and Solo 401(k) plans serve as viable options for small business owners and sole proprietors, providing opportunities for substantial retirement savings.
- Safe Harbor 401(k) plans cater to businesses with employees and ensure fair treatment across compensation levels with mandatory employer contributions.
- Defined Benefit Plans stand at the apex of complexity, suitable for those able to contribute a significant amount annually and seeking maximal tax deductions.
Notable Quotes:
- "For entrepreneurs, we don't have a set it and forget it option." - Chris Picciurro
- "A traditional IRA is a great starter account. It's not designed specifically for entrepreneurs, yet it's utilized by many entrepreneurs when they get started." - Chris Picciurro
- "SEP IRA is a great weapon, especially for people that don't have employees that are just getting the ball rolling." - Chris Picciurro
- "The Solo K or solo Roth 401(k) could be a great weapon for them [entrepreneurs]. It allows you to take a loan against your solo 401(k) for up to $50,000 tax-free." - Chris Picciurro
- "If you're in the situation where you have at least $100,000 or more to contribute to retirement, then the defined benefit plan might be a good option for you." - Chris Picciurro
Creators & Guests
What is Teaching Tax Flow: The Podcast?
Welcome to “Teaching Tax Flow: The Podcast”, the show that’s all about demystifying taxes and helping you keep more of your hard-earned income in your pocket.
Hosted by tax experts from the Teaching Tax Flow team, this unfiltered (but clean) podcast is designed to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need to confidently navigate the world of taxes. We’ll cover everything from understanding tax laws and regulations to maximizing deductions and credits.
In each episode, we’ll break down a specific tax-related topic in a clear and accessible way, providing practical tips and strategies you can use to optimize your tax situation. We’ll also answer listener questions, share the mic with amazing guests, and share real-world examples to help illustrate key concepts.
Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, real estate investor, or just looking to understand your taxes better, this podcast is for you. So tune in, take notes, and start building your confidence in taxes today.
Produced and hosted by Teaching Tax Flow.
www.TeachingTaxFlow.com
Welcome to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast where the goal is to empower and educate you to legally and ethically minimize taxes paid over your lifetime. Welcome back to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast, everybody.
John Tripolsky:Episode 78 today. We are here for the entrepreneurs. If you may or may not know that, that, now you do.
John Tripolsky:This show is a perfect example of that because we are gonna dive head first into retirement accounts for entrepreneurs. But even more exciting than that today, we have a new sponsor and I know Chris loves this one. So before we jump into it, let's take a brief moment and thank our sponsor.
Ad Read:Hi. Chris Picciurro here, founder of Teaching Tax Flow, co host of the Teaching Tax Flow podcast, and pickleball enthusiast. Yes. If you listen to the podcast, you know almost every episode we talk about pickleball, the most popular and growing sport in America. We have tons of opportunities for paddles and and pickleballs, but we don't have a lot of great gear on the market.
Ad Read:Well, I'm so excited to announce that Sunsets and Dink's are now a sponsor of the Teaching Tax Slow podcast and produce amazing gear, not only to look at, but you feel confident on the court. Because you are part of the teaching tax law community, you get a 15% discount on all your orders with them. I know I love the gear I received and I have quite a good record while wearing it, believe it or not, even at my level. Go to teachingtaxflow.com backslashpickleball and simply enter t t f 15 in the serve up promo code area of your paddle rack.
John Tripolsky:Here we are back again. Kinda sounds like the beginning of a rap song, but it is true. We are here to talk about those retirement accounts for entrepreneurs. How exciting or more exciting could that possibly be considering that one of the things when you go into business for yourself,
John Tripolsky:maybe on the bottom of
John Tripolsky:the list, you're looking that far into the future. So let's make everybody feel a little bit better here today. And of course, the bald guy with all the knowledge, Chris Picciurro We've brought him back to his own show. How's it going, Chris?
Chris Picciurro:It's going great. I'm excited to be back and, excited to talk about this topic because we talk a lot in the Teaching Tax Flow community about retirement and income planning. But one of the things with entrepreneurs, and we're gonna talk about common retirement plans for entrepreneurs on this episode, is that for entrepreneurs, we don't have a set it and forget it option. You know? A lot of people that are an employee for a long period of time, that first week, they start the job.
Chris Picciurro:They they, you know, fill out all their forms. They say, oh, I'm gonna put a percentage of money into the 401 k plan, and then they kinda forget about it. And, you know, hopefully for them, they'd never touch that money, and 30 years later, they look and they've got a nice size, nice nice large amount in that 401 k plan or whenever they leave that employer, they could roll it into another plan. But for entrepreneurs, and I've been one for over 20 years now, it's on us to take the bull by the horns in our retirement, talk about in the teaching tax flow community that we should always work with our board of directors. And one of the people on your board of directors, other than your tax professional, would be, someone that you go to for financial advice, a licensed financial adviser that you trust to accomplish your goals.
Chris Picciurro:But what we want the listeners to to to hear now and and if you're an entrepreneur or even thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, get a good idea of what plans are out there. We're gonna start with the simplest of plans and go all the way to the more complex common retirement plans, understand that there are even more complex plans than this potentially, and then we're gonna talk through different types of deadlines and contributions and I'm gonna give you some tips and tricks to determine and navigate what plan is best for you. And, Chris, this too, you
John Tripolsky:know, you mentioned it pretty much right out of the gate here. Right? Is, you know, there is no set it or forget it or is I somehow pulled it out of thin air one day and referred to it as an easy bake oven. Right? It just doesn't exist for this.
John Tripolsky:And for those of you that may be listening and saying, oh, well, you know what? I work for myself. I'm too busy to, you know, bother myself with this, or I just got too much stuff going on. Trust me. You're not the only one.
John Tripolsky:I've fallen to this myself earlier on, but the good news is there's tons of options. So even though there's more options, obviously, there's more responsibility. But also too, it's, you know, it's one of those things, Chris, and I think you would agree with this too. Right? That most people, like, go into business for themselves, I think we all knew or know earlier on that, like, I am gonna have to dedicate everything I have towards this little egg that we want to eventually hatch and grow where, you know, unfortunately, this sometimes becomes a situation where planning this far down the road becomes an afterthought, which is not a good thing.
John Tripolsky:So, Chris, I'm sure you you see that more than anybody else here when we talk about that, but is that sometimes, sometimes the situation for lack of better terms?
Ad Read:Absolutely. Because we get in it's very easy for people to slip into habits. They could be financial. They could be a bunch of things. They could be good, bad, or indifferent, could have a bad pickleball habit, which I don't think is a bad thing, but, you know, I've I've just gotten, like, some of my healthier habits is that I've I've gotten to the point where I love to exercise first thing in the morning.
Ad Read:We're talking about 6 in the morning to 7:30, and it's just a habit I get into. And and so when I which is usually pretty good, but let's say I have something going on with the kids or just with you know, sometimes I work usually when we're traveling, John, I I always carve out time to get get the heart rate up. But, if something comes up at that time and I go it's funny. Just the other this last week, I I went for a run at, like, I don't know, 5 PM. And I was just like, man, this doesn't I'm struggling here.
Chris Picciurro:This is weird because it's it's not my habit to go at that time of the day. So as entrepreneurs, you're right, John. When we first start, we usually we usually fall into this, I've got a survival mode, and you're not into forming habits with, financial habits because you're you're usually taking almost all of your revenue and dumping it right back into your operations to to grow or to survive. So that's, you know, that's one of the things to consider, but we're gonna we're gonna break that. You're gonna learn in this podcast that being an entrepreneur actually gives you a little more flexibility than an employee when it comes to retirement plan contributions.
Ad Read:And, and let's dive in and start with your your most basic type of retirement account. We've talked about this in the future. And within the teaching tax flow system, we define different tax strategies and different concepts as basic, advanced, or ultra advanced. Basic's typically is gonna be a tax strategy or concept that you can do on your own. You could do, you could be in your pajamas on the computer and execute that strategy.
Ad Read:Advanced typically means you're gonna wanna work with a tax professional or financial adviser to make sure that that happens, but it's still implementation wise. It's usually a one person or one outfit implementation team. And then ultra advances where we're bringing in multiple resources from from multiple entities or organizations to make sure that the that the strategy is is executed properly. But let's start with basic. Basic is gonna be your traditional or Roth IRA, individual retirement account, account type of plan rather.
Ad Read:You know, I'm I'm gonna do my best to not use acronyms, at least in the beginning. So IRA stands for individual retirement account. This is a basic type of plan, and it's for individuals. We get questions all the time like, hey. I own a business, a single member LLC, or I own the business is gonna make my contribution to the IRA for me.
Ad Read:Okay. Well, this is an individual plan, hence, IRA. There are limits. Those limits are indexed for inflation, but about $7,000 per person. There's some provisions where you can put an extra $1,000 a year in, if you're over the age of 50.
Ad Read:There is no employer match. So it's it's you're just an individual. You have to have earned income, and there are some thresholds as far as income that could phase you out of a contribution. Timing is important as well. We talk about some strategies are a b, and some are not a b.
Ad Read:Now in some ways, a b could be a bad word, John, but not here. A b means, you know or I'm sorry. A p. Oh my gosh. Sorry.
Ad Read:Some strategies are so a b means a basic strategy. A p means post year end. So some strategies could be executed after the end of the year. Some have to be done by December 31st. So this is a p strategy, meaning you have until April 15th of any year to make a contribution for the previous year.
Ad Read:So traditional or Roth IRA, the real this this is our most basic type of retirement account. It's a great starter account. It's not an account that's designed specifically for entrepreneurs, yet it's utilized by many entrepreneurs when they get started.
Intro:You know, we talked about different options here. It's nice that there's not just 1, 2, or even 3 things that somebody can choose. Right? There's various options for, call it complexity. Right?
Intro:Like, you had mentioned basic advanced, ultra advanced, but then also too. Right? Like, different. It's almost like, you know, not specifically investments. Right?
Intro:But one shoe does not fit all in the case here. So I know you're gonna dive into some other ones here too, but let's almost as we move along here too, maybe we use a use a couple examples. Right? So maybe we look at this, say you're a solopreneur freelancer making 75,000 a year all the way up to, say, a consultant making 2 to $300,000 a year. So, obviously, there's different scenarios, different individuals, but I know you have some great information here, which will will cover some of these in more detail.
Ad Read:Absolutely. And a lot of times, people in the community and and even clients in the private CBA practice come to us and say, well, what what should I what retirement plan should I utilize? The answer lies within the question that I ask them next. How much how much do you wanna commit per year to your plan? How much are you committing per year financially, to the retirement plan?
Ad Read:That tells so if if you're someone that's getting started and you're looking to invest $5,000 per year, then a traditional IRA, assuming you meet the other requirements, would be in a great starting spot. Because the more complex the type of retirement plan, the more administrative cost is associated with it. So as we walk in, let's let's talk about the the second type of plan that is an IRA, so individual retirement account, retirement account that's specifically designed for people that are self employed or entrepreneurs. That's a SEP IRA, SEP. That stands for simplified employee pension plan.
Ad Read:So if you're that retirement account or if you're that self employed individual and you wanna put money into a retirement account, and let's say you wanna put in more than you can into a traditional IRA or let's say you're phased out of putting money in your traditional IRA, maybe your spouse is a high income earner. If they are, congratulations on winning one of the one of the marriage Olympics. But let's say that's that's the case. You can put in the lesser of 25% of your net earnings or depending on your age, in the $60,000 range. So, John, in your example of the person that let's say their net income's $80,000, they're self employed, and they don't have any other employees.
Ad Read:Let's say their spouse is a high income earner and they couldn't do a traditional IRA. In that case, they could put up to $15,000 into that SOP IRA and get that tax deduction in the year of the contribution. The nice thing about the SEP that is much that is similar to a traditional Roth, but gives even more flexibility, is the SEP contribution is not due until the tax deadline of your tax return. Now, John, you know I put a lot of content out there talking about how I love tax extensions and how they allow you extra time, to implement tax strategies. So for this case, if you extend your tax return, you have actually till October 15th on a personal return to make your SEP contribution for the previous year and still get a deduction on the previous year.
Ad Read:So this is an advance retirement plan for entrepreneurs, It's for employers only. So if I have an a couple employees, then most likely they would, over time, become eligible, where I would have to contribute for a set for them. I have a lot of flexibility on the deadline, and I can contribute, in general, 25% of my net income unless that exceeds, you know, over, let's say, in the $60,000 range. If that's the case, then you usually would wanna move into a different plan. So but the SEP IRA is a is a great weapon, in in especially for people that don't have employees that are just getting getting the ball rolling.
Intro:Right. Right. And and, Chris, you mentioned that too. You know, obviously, there's certain limitations within certain of these as well too. So kind of, you know, reiterating what you mentioned on, you know, a little bit earlier on too.
Intro:It's, you know, within your personal board of directors having your financial person, your tax person that you go to. It's it's really Corey Corey O'graphing of the dance. Well, I couldn't say that word today. I'm as bad with saying words as as you are letters, man. It's like you give a tax guy an acronym, and he's fine.
Intro:You give him one letter, and he drops the ball. It's like, you know, you give a marketing guy a hard word that doesn't spell check, and, apparently, I can't even say it.
Ad Read:But even well, that's alright. We've got spell check, John. We we we're gonna be fine.
Intro:We got chat g p t and spell check. I think we'd yeah. We'll be alright. So, Chris, you you mentioned a couple things too in there. You know, I I know we threw out some of the examples of the scenarios of certain types of individuals.
Intro:Before we get too far along in these, you know, maybe what's an example besides doing nothing? Right? Say somebody from day 1, they say, yes. You know, this is what I wanna contribute to. This is this is what I'm looking for.
Intro:Do they really again, being that entrepreneurs are very busy people, especially at the beginning there. Do you see it, or is it a bad idea sometimes just to set up anything and just jump into it, contribute, and then change it to something else down the road? Or was your suggestion really be, you know, maybe pump the brakes for 6 months or a year, then look at your situation and plan accordingly. In case in point, right? A freelancer, you might have a freelance graphic designer, say, for example, Their ambitions are extremely high, but they have no idea how much income they're gonna bring in.
Intro:So by them making a decision on what type of account they wanna start from the beginning, Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
Ad Read:Well, I would say for a freelancer with no employees, the best thing to do is don't do anything in the very beginning. Because remember, with the traditional IRA or Roth IRA or the sub IRA, you have until the next year to determine if you're eligible to make a contribution and what that maximum contribution is. So although I'm so what maybe what you might wanna do is set up a separate checking account. You call it your tax account, call it your retirement account. But just set that money aside, not into a because what the problem is is if people contribute to a retirement account I just had a private CPA firm client.
Ad Read:Today, I wanted to give him a pop knot because he he went and contributed to an I Roth IRA, and and once we found out, he had to take it out. Right? So there's really no reason to rush those contributions in those two cases. So I would say, you know, wait it out. Let's see where where you stand, and let's make sure it makes sense tax wise because especially if you're you're a freelancer just getting started, your taxable income might not be very high.
Ad Read:So you might be a gold diagnosis or green diagnosis, meaning a Roth would make more sense than the traditional IRA. So that that's my advice for someone just getting started. Now let's climb up the complexity ladder a little bit. We're talking about 2 more advanced retirement account types for entrepreneurs. One of them is something we use within our private CPA practice.
Ad Read:So we have, I think, about 8 to 10 participants in this plan. It's called the Simple IRA. And when Simple IRA was created, by congress because they wanted smaller employees, employers, to be able to offer a retirement plan for their employees that's very inexpensive, that the compliance fees are low compared to maybe forming a a four zero one k plan. That's where the simple IRA was born. So the simple IRA is an advanced retirement plan.
Ad Read:Again, we use it for in our private practice. It does involve the contributors are employees and employers. So employees for the 20, 23 tax year can contribute, and this goes through a w two. This is very important. Employees contribute through w two up to $15,500 plus there's some catch up contributions if you're over the age of 50.
Ad Read:The employer gets the choice of matching either 2 2% of of their wages or up to a 3% match based on what the employee does. So some employers say, look, I'm gonna contribute to a simple IRA for all my employees a flat 2% if you put money in or not. Some employers say, no. We're gonna match up to 3%, but we but you've gotta put 3% in and then we'll match your 3%. And that's what we do.
Ad Read:We want our team members to at least put 3% away into their into that simple IRA. So simple IRA is great, in my opinion, for employers that have, let's say, 20 employees or less and that wanna that that want to be able to to to allow their employees to put in more money through their w two than they could in a traditional IRA and they wanna match some and contribute some to the employee's retirement plan.
Intro:Gotcha. Gotcha. And that's a good good explanation of them too. And I know there's a couple other ones that really get into the into the complexity, the weeds. I I like how the way you describe that.
Intro:It was a complexity ladder. It's a good way.
Ad Read:It is a complexity ladder, and let's keep climbing into the 3rd advanced common common retirement plan for entrepreneurs is the solo k or solo Roth k. Cool thing with the solo k is is that it's for someone that is that is self employed and has no employees with the exception of themselves or their spouse. So it could be someone that owns a c corporation, that they're they're an employee and their spouse is an employee. It could be someone that's an s corp. It could be someone that's just self employed and employs their spouse.
Ad Read:So this allows someone we talk about income shifting to family members. This allows someone to create a 401 k plan and make it what's called a solo k plan, which means your your your, your complexity is less than a safe harbor 401 k plan, which I'll talk about in a moment. You don't have to worry about unfairly treating lowerly lower compensated employees because you're the only employee, you and your spouse. It also allows you to put significantly more money into the 4 zero one k than than even a simple IRA. So for 2023, it's $22,500 each employee could put in, and there's a bonus if they're over the age of 50.
Ad Read:And then the employer, which is you, can kick in another up to, let's say, in the $40,000 range each. So my point is is if I if you run into a a taxpayer that, that has a significant amount of net income that says, I wanna put up to $100,000 into a retirement plan. It's myself and my spouse. We run this business together. We don't have any other employees.
Ad Read:The solo k or solo Roth 401k really, really could be a great weapon for them. One other thing with the solo k, and we're not advocating doing this without consulting your tax professional and financial advisor, but you can take a loan against your for solo four zero one k for up to $50,000 or half of the vested value tax free. So it does allow the owner, this that that self employed person, to have some flexibility with and be able to take money out as a loan instead of a taxable distribution plus 10% penalty. So solo four zero one k or solo Roth, great for a someone self employed or is their only employee or is them and their spouse are the only employee that's looking to put away, let's say, $40,000 or more into retirement.
Intro:So, really, we've covered what what we had about 4 of them that we've gone through so far on these, and obviously, there's the the much more advanced ones. So we won't call it the dark side, but these are definitely not for your, for your DIY attempters for the most part. Right?
Ad Read:Absolutely. We've got 2 ultra advanced common retirement plan types for entrepreneurs. Reminder, on the simple IRA and solo k, those are gonna go through your w two wages. The solo k, unless you're self employed and and and you don't have w two wages, if you're just a schedule c person, then it wouldn't go your contributions wouldn't go through that, a w w two. But let's talk about safe harbor 401 k.
Ad Read:Why is it ultra advanced? Well, because with a safe harbor 401 k, there there are more rules, more testing, and this is for gonna be for someone that wants to have a 401k plan, wants to create those opportunities to put between employee and employer, you know, $40,000 plus away per year, but also has employees. In the 401 k rules, make sure that employees are treated fairly, even if you have several that are that are lower in compensation or you have a small group of people that are that are high in compensation. So that's why it's a safe harbor. You're gonna hire a 3rd party administrator, what we call in the business a TPA, and they're gonna help you make sure that your 401 k plan is compliant, hence the safe harbor, and that it's not favoring just the higher, higher income earners.
Ad Read:The limits as far as contributions from an employee and employer are the same as a SoloK. So, basically, this is gonna be a SoloK for people that have, employees. And this is gonna be a great fit for people. You know, we talked about, hey. If someone has 20 or less employees, that simple IRA is good.
Ad Read:If you have more than 20 employees or if you if you wanna contribute significantly more money than just a 3% match, which is still generous from the simple IRA, a safe harbor 4 zero one k plan would be a great option. The challenge is is that your your administrative costs are gonna be significantly higher with a safe harbor 4 zero one k plan. We're talking, you know, upwards of 5 to $10,000 a year potentially versus a simple IRA. Awesome.
Intro:Awesome. And then we'll save the best for last or the most complex for last. Right? And I and I knew this one was coming. And some and this one, if I remember right too, this one is specifically for employers.
Intro:So this is something that even if you're an employee, this may be something that your, your fearless leader is putting in place or has put in place for you as an employee if you haven't gone to the entrepreneur side of things yet.
Ad Read:Correct. So the most complex ultra advanced retirement plan for employer and entrepreneurs is a defined benefit plan. Now a or DB plan, someone call some people call it. But a defined benefit plan can work in concert with a 401 k plan or a SEP or a simple IRA. But what a defined benefit plan does is it allows you to contribute significantly more money into your retirement account.
Ad Read:And the average employer contribution, which if you're self employed, you'd be the employer, is about $250,000 per year. Now the amount you can contribute to the defined benefit plan depends on your, as we like to say, situationally dependent. And it would there are some significant administrative costs because you do need a 3rd party administrator. You need to hire an actuary professional each year and calculate what your maximum contribution is gonna be. But let's put it like this.
Ad Read:If you're in the situation where you have at least a $100,000 or more to contribute to retirement, I would almost say 250 or more, then the defined benefit plan might be a good option for you. If not, I would stick to the 4 zero one k plans for now. If you are in that situation, congratulations, and really look at that defined benefit plan. There are some restrictions. There are some pluses and minuses.
Ad Read:But, again, you know, if you're contributing a 150,000, $200,000 per year into this plan and and, you know, reducing your current year tax by 60 to $80,000, that is well worth the the administrative costs and effort to, to implement this defined benefit plan. Ultra advanced, so we're gonna bring in that team of people. We're gonna expand your board of directors to make sure we get the right people and the right seats to help you out. Chris, I
Intro:have so many notes on these. I knew we had some of these, but now going back through my notes, trying to even figure out what I was writing down there because some of these are, you know, a little bit more confusing, obviously, complex than other ones. So, again, kind of you know, it's fun doing these podcasts because I kinda consider myself more of the more of the average Joe, and, heck, I even learned a couple things here. It's always entertaining.
Ad Read:Well, my advice to put a bow on this, and you're no average Joe or John, my friend. But my my advice is this, work backwards. Come up with a plan, where you think you wanna be at when in retirement, work with a licensed financial adviser, make sure that you determine what kind type of cash flow you have available. You know, you don't wanna be taking money out of your living, your house payment or your utility payment to put into retirement. You know, you've got this has gotta be money you're gonna you're willing to set aside and, let grow.
Ad Read:And from there, you could and then we have to look at, do you have employees, what type structure you are? And then we figure out what plan works best. That's a great stopping point for us on this topic today. And as I always, always like to close it out with, we'll see everybody back here,
Intro:same time, different day, different topic here on the Teaching Techflow podcast. The content provided is for educational purposes only. We encourage you to seek personalized investment advice from your financial professional. For all tax and legal advice, please consult your CPA or attorney. Investment advisory services are offered through Cabin Advisors, a registered investment adviser.
Intro:Securities are offered through Cabin Securities, a registered broker dealer. Offerings can only be made through an offering memorandum, and you should carefully examine the risk factors and other information contained in the memorandum.