PROFIT SHARING Plan Tool Methodology and Assumptions
If one or more owners of a business has either direct or indirect ownership interests in multiple businesses, the businesses may need to be aggregated and treated as a single business for retirement plan coverage/compliance purposes pursuant to Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Secs. 414(b) and (c). For purposes of this modeling tool, it is assumed that the business for which plan modeling is done is not part of a controlled group under IRC Secs. 4154(b) or (c).
When sponsoring a Profit Sharing plan, employers may elect to impose an eligibility service requirement. Plans may require employees (including business owners) to complete up to 2 years of service to be eligible to participate in the plan. A "year of service" may be defined as up to 1,000 hours over a 12-month period. The specific criteria and methodology for determining eligibility service can vary from plan to plan. Accordingly, users must refer to their plan documents to identify how eligibility service is determined under their plan, and to ensure that the value(s) entered for "Prior Year(s) of Service" accurately reflect the user's specific plan provisions.
When sponsoring a Profit Sharing plan, employers may elect to impose an age requirement (up to a maximum of age 21) on plan eligibility. This plan modeling tool uses the "Year of Birth" field to calculate the age an individual will attain in the year for which plan modeling is being done. Individuals whose attained age for year of modelling is equal to or greater than the user-selected "Minimum Age Requirement" are deemed to have met the plan's minimum age requirement. Because the specific criteria and methodology for determining eligibility service can vary from plan to plan, users are advised to review their plan documents to ensure that their plan language comports with the assumptions used in this plan modeling tool.
Individuals (employees and business owners) who are deemed to have met the plan's age and eligibility service requirements for plan coverage are presumed to be covered for the entire plan year under this modeling tool (i.e., their entire year's compensation is used to estimate their plan contribution for the year). Given that some plan documents may prescribe multiple plan entry dates, this modeling tool assumption may result in estimated contributions that are greater than a participant is eligible to receive under the terms of a specific plan. To compensate for this, users may choose to adjust the compensation for affected individuals to reflect only the amount of compensation earned during the individual's period of plan coverage. (For example, if an individual is only eligible for plan coverage from July 1 through December 31, the user may choose to enter compensation earned by that individual only during the applicable period of plan coverage.)
Profit Sharing plans typically permit employers to exclude certain classes of employees from participation. These categories can include certain groups of employees covered under a collectively bargained plan, certain nonresident alien employees and other categories of employees (subject to federal coverage and discrimination testing requirements). This plan modeling tool assumes that the employees entered are not part a class of employees that are otherwise excludable from coverage under the terms of the user's plan document.
For a self-employed individual's income from his or her business to be considered eligible compensation for retirement plan contribution purposes, the individual's personal services must generally be a material income-producing factor. For purposes of this modeling tool, it is assumed that amounts entered as "Estimated Self-Employment Earnings" for unincorporated business owners meet this requirement.
For purposes of estimating plan contribution allocations, this modeling tool incorporates assumptions which may or may not accurately reflect the way amounts such as self-employment taxes and business deductions will actually be calculated for unincorporated business owners. For purposes of estimating self-employment taxes, the modeling tool assumes that the business owner does not have taxable income from other sources which may affect the amount of self-employment taxes he or she will owe with regards to the business for which plan modeling is being done.
Contributions to the plan are assumed to be allocated to all eligible plan participants on a pro-rata basis based on the contribution percentage selected within the plan modeling tool. (Note: Some Profit Sharing plan documents may allow other methods of allocating plan contributions between eligible plan participants.)
For purposes of this plan modeling tool, it is assumed that the "Estimated Self-Employment Earnings" and "Estimated W-2 Income" figure entered for each business owner and common-law employee as applicable is the amount that is considered covered compensation under the employer's Profit Sharing plan document.
For purposes of this plan modeling tool, it is assumed that the employer does not maintain any other employer-sponsored retirement savings plan.