Hi,
Thank you for your time in advance.
Got a client who has two companies. one with 80 employees and the other with 1500 employees.
He wants to offer a retirement benefit only to the 80-person group. However, my understanding is that company sponsored plans cannot just exclude one company.

Alternatively, we’ve discussed a salary deduction IRA for employees who want to participate. I wonder if it would be logistically possible to transfer employee’s desired IRA contribution AND company match directly to the investment custodian.
I believe that company match will subject to FICA as normal compensation, so the employee will end up having to pay a bit more in taxes out of pocket essentially for that portion.

OR, how about the employer giving “cash” bonus to the contributing employee to incentivize them? which I think could be an easier solution. Then, would there be any discriminatory issues with giving cash bonus to contributing employees only?

Do you have any other suggestions?