Plans We Support

Retirement plans can be designed to meet a broad range of savings and tax goals. The key is to be an expert partner and design a plan that can best accomplish what each client needs rather than sell a one-size-fits-all solution. At LatitudeTM, we’re experts at listening, analyzing your business and personal objectives to design a plan that has the potential to optimize each of these goals.

We can help you start a new plan or update and enhance the provisions of an existing plan to help optimize its performance for you.

Defined Contribution

401(k) (Traditional or Safe Harbor)

A 401(k) Plan is a Defined Contribution Profit Sharing Plan that contains a cash or deferred arrangement as described in Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply an arrangement that allows plan participants to elect to defer a portion of their compensation (elective deferrals) and have it contributed to the plan on their behalf.

403(b) and 457(b)

403(b) Plans are similar to 401(k) Plans but are governed by Section 403(b) of the Internal Revenue Code. These plans may be adopted only by certain eligible employers, including 501(c)(3) organizations, educational organizations and states (including political subdivisions or state agencies).

457(b) Plans may be maintained by a governmental employer (i.e., a state, a political subdivision of a state or any agency or instrumentality of a state or political subdivision of a state). Rollovers are permitted to or from governmental section 457(b) Plans.

Cafeteria (Section 125)

A Cafeteria Plan (includes Premium Only Plans and Flexible Spending Accounts) is an employee benefits program designed to take advantage of Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code. A Cafeteria Plan allows employees to pay certain qualified expenses, such as health insurance premiums dependent care expenses or medical expenses, on a pre-tax basis, thereby reducing their total taxable income and increasing their spendable, take-home income.

Profit Sharing, Including Cross-Tested and Age-Based Formulas

A Profit Sharing Plan is a type of Defined Contribution Plan that is not a Pension Plan. The employer’s contribution to a Profit Sharing Plan is not required to be fixed, nor does it need to be tied to profits. While a plan may have a definite contribution formula, many plans use a discretionary formula under which the employer determines each year how much to contribute.

A Cross-Tested or Age-Based Plan is an employer-sponsored Profit Sharing Plan that favors older, long-term employees, who, by age, are closer to retirement. Unlike traditional Profit Sharing Plans, which may provide a flat dollar amount or a flat percentage formula for each participant, the participant’s age, service and compensation are taken into account when determining the allocation of these contributions.

Money Purchase Pension

A Money Purchase Plan is a type of Pension Plan. It is a Defined Contribution Plan that must provide a fixed-contribution formula (i.e., the contributions can not be discretionary). The benefits from a Money Purchase Plan must be paid as a joint and survivor annuity unless the participant (and the participant’s spouse) waives this right.

ESOP and KSOP

An ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) is a Defined Contribution Plan and may be a Stock Bonus Plan or a Stock Bonus Plan and Money Purchase Plan. The distinguishing feature of an ESOP is that it must be designed to invest primarily in employer securities. In addition to many of the typical Defined Contribution Plan rules, an ESOP must satisfy certain diversification rules, distribution restrictions, allocation restrictions and voting-rights requirements.

A KSOP combines an employee’s stock ownership plan (ESOP) with a 401(k) Plan.

Non-Qualified

Any type of tax-deferred, employer-sponsored retirement plan that falls outside of employee retirement income security act (ERISA) guidelines is a “Non-Qualified Defined Contribution Plan.” These non-qualified plans are designed to meet specialized retirement needs for key executives and other select employees. They also are exempt from the discriminatory and top-heavy testing that qualified plans are subject to.

Defined Benefit

Defined Benefit Plans

A Defined Benefit Plan is a Pension Plan that does not maintain account balances to reflect the accrued benefits of the plan participants. As a Pension Plan, a Defined Benefit Plan must define the benefit formula and how benefits are accrued under that formula. The benefits are stated as an annuity payable to the participant beginning at retirement age.

Cash Balance

A Cash Balance Plan is a unique type of Defined Benefit Plan that describes a participant’s accrued benefit as a hypothetical account balance or a single-sum amount. The term “cash balance” is used to distinguish this type of Defined Benefit Plan from a “traditional” Defined Benefit Plan (see description above).

Floor Offset

In general, only older employees will actually receive a benefit from the Defined Benefit Plan since the benefits of the younger participants are fully offset. This type of arrangement is useful in situations where the principal owner(s) of the business is older than the staff and the company wants to maintain a Defined Contribution Plan for the staff.

Hybrid

Hybrid Plans

Hybrid Plans combine features of both Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Plans. Factors that your organization may consider in the decision to implement a hybrid retirement plan include employee understanding and appreciation, changing work force demographics, changing economics, changing regulatory and legislative rules.

Cash Balance

Cash Balance Plans are classified as Defined Benefit Plans but have many Defined Contribution Plan characteristics. A Cash Balance Plan expresses benefits in terms of hypothetical accounts that are credited with interest and a contribution credit. These plans generally provide participants the option of receiving their vested account balances in the form of a lump-sum distribution or as an annuity.

Age-Weighted Profit-Sharing

An Age-Weighted profit sharing plan permits employers to make contribution allocations on the basis of age as well as salary. Using a simple age-weighted formula, it is possible for an older employee to receive many more times the contribution of a younger employee. Additionally, Instead of strictly age-weighting a plan, an employer may find it more desirable to reward the longer-service employees by weighting contributions by service, or a combination of age and service, rather than just age.

New Comparability

This plan design allows an employer to adopt a formula that provides higher allocations to certain employees based on a “class or group”. The employer decides which groups get which allocations. The allocation formulas adopted by the plan for the various groups must pass the required discrimination testing mandated by the IRS.

Target-Benefit

A benefit plan that is similar to a Defined Benefit Plan since contributions are based on projected retirement benefits. However, unlike a Defined Benefit Plan, the benefits provided to participants at retirement are based on the performance of the investments, and are therefore not guaranteed.

Floor Offset

More accurately called a Floor Offset Arrangement, consists of two plans: a Defined Benefit Plan and a Defined Contribution Plan. The participant’s benefits in the Defined Benefit Plan are offset, or reduced, by the projected value of the participant’s account balance in the Defined Contribution Plan. In general, only older employees will actually receive a benefit from the Defined Benefit Plan since the benefits of the younger participants are fully offset. This type of arrangement is useful in situations where the principal owner(s) of the business is older than the staff and the company wants to maintain a Defined Contribution Plan for the staff.

We support everything from 401(k) plans to Defined Benefit and Cash Balance plans.

Talk to us about your goals.

We can design a plan that’s just right for you.