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ctongish
Level 2

Single owner s- Corp Retirement contributions and payroll

I have a single owner s-corp client I need help with. 
She is a realtor and has $100 per commission check taken out and automatically sent to her retirement account.  In QBO I gross up her commission at the end of the year to account for all the money that went directly from the brokerage to the retirement account so her commission amount matches what was paid out.
 
For 2019, she had $3100 from her commissions directly sent and deposited into a Roth 401k, which I have reflected on her W2 in box 12, code AA.  To do this however, I added wages paid to account for this so she had taxes taken out.
 
Then, at the end of the year, she wrote a check for $21,000 that went to a non-roth 401k.  This was considered an employee contribution, but in reality should be a company contribution.  Because this was originally considered an employee contribution, I assumed this needed to be added to payroll so she would have ss and medicare taxes paid on it.  
 
What I did was on Dec 30 ran a payroll with wages of $27,625.  With this payroll I put deductions of  $3100 for a Roth 401k and $21000 for a 401k.  She then had federal tax withheld of 1042.71, ss of 1712.75, medicare of 400.56 and Nebraska tax of 368.80.
 
I know this is wrong, but I don't know how to fix it.  Her W2 shows box 1 at $43524 and box 3 and 5 at $60625.  She also has SEHI of $3899.
 
Her reasonable comp is supposed to only be around $33,000.
 
I know I will have to correct her W2, but I just do not know how to fix all this so it is accounted for correctly and reflected on her W2 correctly.
 
Please help me!  This is so over my head!
4 Comments 4
john-pero
Community Champion

Single owner s- Corp Retirement contributions and payroll

"Reasonable compensation" for a realtor? I know realtors taking down 6 figures in commissions but aside from that, I would, myself, attempt to keep dividend distributions at an amount no greater than the W2 wages once the test of "reasonable" is met. There is no requirement I know of that mandates hat there are dividend distributions aside from W2 wages, although that is the single most outed reason for being S corp, I suppose.

 

Since to begin with you are dealing with a Roth on the regular contributions I would not even count those as wages since there is no current tax benefit  - Roth is funded with after tax money. I would treat the Roth as being funded from the distributions.

 

The regular retirement account, to gain its tax benefit, must be from wages and would show on the W2 but what (I do not know at moment) are restrictions on percent of gross that can be directed to a traditional retirement account?  I would work from that.  Quite possibly that $21k , when grossed up and FICA,  and FWT health insurance paid and other fringes that need to be included (personal use of the SUV with the realtor name on the side) might suffice as far as reaching your magic 433k and then all other funds are just distributions on the K-1

 

Now, number 1, you should never accept free advice on the internet as gospel unless you can corroborate it with IRS publications. Which means - I am no expert on dealing with a subchapter S, only payroll for non-owners of LLC and sole-prop (40+ years) so do wait for additional help on this. @Rustler may know a trick or two.

ctongish
Level 2

Single owner s- Corp Retirement contributions and payroll

I'm not asking about reasonable comp or distributions, I'm asking about the retirement contributions and payroll.

 

The $21,000 was put into a 401(k).  I have this as being contributed from wages, but should be a profit sharing contribution and not included on payroll.  I'm trying to determine how to fix this.

john-pero
Community Champion

Single owner s- Corp Retirement contributions and payroll

I thought the goal was to reduce taxes with the traditional retirement contribution. Doesn't it have to come from wages - reducing Box 1 in comparison to Box 3/5 by that amount?  Profit sharing is not earned income. 

 

Here is what I see if the traditional 401k were funded from W2 wages.  If you do not want it to come from wages then you would have no difference between boxes 1 and 3.  The difference in any boxes, 1.3.5 to me appears to be $12,000.00  Somewhere did you post $1,000 per month as wages instead of draw? I know there technically is no draw in a S corp but there are non-wage distributions to be accounted for. Gross wages of 27625 plus fringe benefit health insurance of 3899 gets us to $31,524.  The 43524 added to 21000 less 3899 = $60,625  It appears you are including the 21k as income and then income again at some point. 

 

Isn't the goal, possibly $31, 524 (wages plus health insurance) based on the payroll you ran? Without SEHI (not certain of its FWT treatment) Box 1 ought to be somewhere between $7625-$11,524.  If you include the Roth funding in wages rather than coming from distributions that is another 3100 so at worst case Box 1 should be somewhere from $10,725-$14,624 and Box 3, 5 $31,725-$35,624 and the rest should fall into place

 

 

ctongish
Level 2

Single owner s- Corp Retirement contributions and payroll

So maybe I am making this to complicated.  Can the $21,000 for the  401(k) be funded from distributions?  That would be after tax money though. 

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