A Simplified Employee Pension Individual Retirement Arrangement (SEP-IRA) is a variation of the Individual Retirement Account used in the United States. SEP-IRAs are adopted by business owners to provide retirement benefits for themselves and their employees. There are no significant administration costs for a self-employed person with no employees. If the self-employed person does have employees, all employees must receive the same benefits under a SEP plan. Since SEP-IRAs are a type of IRA, funds can be invested the same way as most other IRAs.
The deadline for establishing the plan and making contributions is the filing deadline for the employer's tax return, including extensions.
The strictest conditions employers may place on employee eligibility are as follows. The employee must be included if they have:
- attained age 21
- worked for the employer in three of the previous five years
- received at least $650 in compensation for tax year 2021 ($600 for 2019 and for 2020)
Employers may use less restrictive criteria.
SEP-IRA funds are taxed at ordinary income tax rates when qualified withdrawals are taken after age (as for traditional IRAs). Contributions to a SEP plan are deductible, lowering a taxpayer's income tax liability in the contribution year.
Contribution limits
SEP-IRA contributions are treated as part of a profit-sharing plan. For employees, the employer may contribute up to 25% of the employee's wages to the employee's SEP-IRA account. For example, if an employee earns $40,000 in wages, the employer could contribute up to $10,000 to the SEP-IRA account.
The total contribution to a SEP-IRA account should not exceed a) the lesser of 25% of income (20% for self-employed before self-employed tax deduction is included; see below)); or b) $42,000 (for 2005), $44,000 (2006), $45,000 (2007), $46,000 (2008), $49,000 (2009–2011), $50,000 (2012), $51,000 (2013), $52,000 (2014), $53,000 (2015–2016), $54,000 (2017), $55,000 (2018), $56,000 (2019), $57,000 (2020), $58,000 (2021), $61,000 (2022), $66,000 (2023), or $69,000 (2024) . For 2010 and 2011, the compensation used in the calculation was capped at $245,000 (e.g., an employer making a 10% contribution cannot contribute more than $24,500 for any employee).
Two complications are:
- Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA)
- Reduced rate
FICA tax
SEP contribution limits are computed not from net profit but from net profit adjusted for the deduction for self-employment tax (2019 Form 1040 Schedule C, line 31; 2019 Form 1040, Schedule F, line 34; or 2019 Form 1065, Schedule K-1, box 14, code A). Barring limits, this is half the 15.3% FICA tax, levied on net earnings, which is 92.35% of net profit. Therefore, adjusted net profit (net profit minus deduction for self-employment tax) is 92.935225% of net profit, which is close to but slightly more than net earnings.