Retirement plan for small church

Submitted by Steve Ellis on Mon, 2019-10-28 16:01

Small church has one employee (pastor).
Pastor wants to make Roth contributions greater than what a Roth IRA allows.
A Roth 403b is a solution. It would be a voluntary 403b and non-ERISA.
Looking for a recommendation for a provider without all the typical plan admin costs.

Other solutions that anyone has used?



Submitted by William Tuttle on Mon, 2019-10-28 22:23

  • Pastors are usually considered self-employed individuals. The church is not their employer and can not adopt an employer retirement plan for them.
  • A self-employed pastor can adopt, maintain and contribute to their own one-participant 401k plan.


Submitted by Steve Ellis on Tue, 2019-10-29 14:42

This pastor is actually a W-2 employee in this case.



Submitted by William Tuttle on Wed, 2019-10-30 01:25

  • 403b administrative costs for a single employee plan would likely be prohibitative.
  • A Fidelity SIMPLE IRA has no employer or per employee administrative costs.
  • It only requires either a 3% employer match or a 2% non-elective contribution.
  • The employee can make pre-tax employee deferrals up to $13K (+$3K if >= age 50).
  • It is not Roth, but it is more contribution space. Two years after the first contribution, Roth conversions could be done. To achieve the same effect.
  • The timeframe is tight to have it start on 1/1/2020. It requires a 60-day notice enrollment period. That is 11/2/2019 for a plan effective 1/1/2020. Although each day only delays it by one day.
  • I would get a move on tomorrow morning. It might be possible.


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