Max Retirement Account Contributions for Couples
The background (both are under age 50):
Husband owns his own business, and does not W2 himself, but rather he takes an owner draw weekly. His is a single member LLC. He gets a K1 from the LLC. The LLC does have one W2 employee. He’s been maxing out his Roth IRA for the past few years. He has no other retirement plans established for either himself or his business. Roth IRA worth approx $29,000 and adds $500/mo to it.
Wife is a W2 employee and participates in her company’s SIMPLE IRA. Her account has been growing for years and is about $179,000. She’s been adding 15% of her salary, approx $7,000 deferral, to this annually.
The Questions:
1) Can husband start a SIMPLE IRA with his company and because he does not W2 himself, would he then not be able to put away deferrals from his owner draw? Plus the match? (of course he would need to offer the SIMPLE IRA to his W2 employee(s) as well).
2) If he is able to start up a SIMPLE IRA for his company, can he contribute the max to that of $13,500 AND his $6,000 to his Roth IRA?
3) If he does start up a SIMPLE IRA, does that then count as “both having access to an employer work plan” and/or does that have anything to do with what he wife could do outside of her SIMPLE IRA?
4) For example, could she max out her SIMPLE IRA and contribute some or the max to a Roth?
Of course MAGI has to do with limits and contributions also (or at least deductibility of contributions). Need some help clarifying these rules.
What other suggestions would you have for them to put more away for retirement and save on current taxes. Of course the wife can put more in her SIMPLE IRA to max it out at the $13,500 for 2020.
An Individual(k) will not work for him as he has a W2 employee, and he does not want to be liable for a SEP contribution to the one employee with that type of plan.
Permalink Submitted by David Mertz on Wed, 2020-02-05 23:30