Sheltering Money from a "401K Refund"

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by COJeff

So here is the thing. I'm a contractor through an agency, I can sometimes work 100 hours a week. I get no matching only the benefit of a plan to contribute to. (Principle Financial, they are pretty much useless) how can accrued benefits factor in if the agency does not contribute.

When I started the hope was to lower myself and wife in a low enough tax bracket to contribute to a IRA.

We get it. But it's most likely not the company's fault. The IRS has rules about Highly Compensated Employees. If now enough of lower paid employees are contributing or signed up, they limit how much you can contribute, even if that's below the standard IRS limit.

You should push the company's HR to do automatic enrollment for everyone, if they're not doing it already.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by COJeff

When I started the hope was to lower myself and wife in a low enough tax bracket to contribute to a IRA.

If you don’t already have an IRA and you earn too much to make a tax-exempt contribution to one, look at funding a Roth IRA via the backdoor method. It won’t lower your taxes now, but it will allow you to get more money invested in a tax-advantage space, and withdrawals during retirement will be tax-free.