Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-27-2017, 10:15 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,696 posts, read 24,873,823 times
Reputation: 18940

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aredhel View Post
Sure they can match into an employee's 401k. The point that I was making is that (as far as I understand it) a 401k plan is fairly cumbersome for an employer to set up. Contrast that to an IRA, which a person can open in five minutes or so online using one of any number of a huge array of banks/brokerages.

Make the process of setting up a 401k plan easier for employers, and more employers are likely to offer one (with or without a match).
I kind of doubt that.

I set my 401k up in about 5 minutes online from my couch (self-employed). There's some additional things they have to be aware of that I do not as they are not applicable for a solo 401k. That's really just highly compensated employee rules and that you can't have discriminatory 401k plans. The latter is just a stupid rule by well-intended idiots but it actually just makes it easier. There's some payroll and contribution limit stuff but that's not going to be that cumbersome to any larger company. For the smaller ones, it's an issue.

Honestly, there's nothing that special about a 401k over an IRA aside from the much higher contribution limits. That's a pretty simple fix. Just make them have the same contribution limits. I personally think 401k limits are already too high as is. $54,000 is, well, kind of a big writeoff. Having $18-20k limits for both would be much more reasonable than having a $54,000 limit for 401k and $5,500 for IRA. That's not really sufficient, which is why I bothered setting up a 401k. If you're really worried about revenue neutral, just tier it. Chop off some of the limit on the high end of 401k contribution limits and increase the IRA contribution limits.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-27-2017, 07:37 PM
 
345 posts, read 248,241 times
Reputation: 303
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
I personally think 401k limits are already too high as is. $54,000 is, well, kind of a big writeoff. Having $18-20k limits for both would be much more reasonable than having a $54,000 limit for 401k and $5,500 for IRA. That's not really sufficient, which is why I bothered setting up a 401k. If you're really worried about revenue neutral, just tier it. Chop off some of the limit on the high end of 401k contribution limits and increase the IRA contribution limits.
Are you talking about a self-employed IRA here? Those do have pretty high limits and it seems kind of unfair to the people with other tax deferred plans. I always took full advantage of the things.

401k's can be pretty odd. I've seen cases where companies got the employee contributions and used them to float their own operations. Another problem seems to be companies that buy packages of available investments that are really crummy, high expense, etc. You'd think that you could just do some turnkey thing with Vanguard.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-29-2017, 11:21 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,696 posts, read 24,873,823 times
Reputation: 18940
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corerius View Post
Are you talking about a self-employed IRA here? Those do have pretty high limits and it seems kind of unfair to the people with other tax deferred plans. I always took full advantage of the things.

401k's can be pretty odd. I've seen cases where companies got the employee contributions and used them to float their own operations. Another problem seems to be companies that buy packages of available investments that are really crummy, high expense, etc. You'd think that you could just do some turnkey thing with Vanguard.
No, 401k. IRA limits aren't high enough which is why I setup the 401k. 401k is generally better than a defined-benefit pension as far as floating operations goes both in that there's oversight, should get statements from mutual fund, diversity. That doesn't mean it's impossible. At my mom's work when she was first starting out they used a financial adviser who embezzled the money and skated off to the Bahamas. The employer ended up refunding all the contributions.

The self-control is nice but most people are lousy at managing investments so in actuality it's not so nice. I just park it in a broad-based ETF which has very low fees aside from a smaller amount I dabble in individual stocks with. That said, it's not a very sophisticated asset approach. Works for me as I'm so far out from retirement but 100% equities isn't ideal for everyone.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top