Episode 17: A Look at Compensation & Benefit Plans

Transcript

IRIS LAWS

On this episode, we’ll take a look at one of the most powerful tools to influence the culture, leadership, and longevity of your business: compensation and benefit plans. We feature our very own Devin Tenney for some thoughts and opportunities and potential traps when it comes to these plans. From your one stop for tax updates and analysis, I’m Iris.

DEVIN TENNEY

And I’m Devin.

IRIS LAWS

And this is “Tackling Tax.”

Well, it’s a new year. And while we normally begin our episodes with the Fast Four stories of the week, we have so much to talk about with our main topic today we figured we might as well jump right in. So, let’s get started with this week’s Planning Insights.

He is no stranger to the show, but for those unfamiliar, I am so excited to be spending some one-on-one time today with my co-host Devin Tenney. Devin is a director in our Washington National Tax Office and the leader of our Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits, or Comp and Ben, as we’ll call it today, practice. Well, Devin, before this episode, you sent me like this massive wad of scholarly articles to read so that I could have some background.

I have to say, I was a little intimidated not having basically any knowledge in this space outside of maybe what I had in grad school. But, at the same time, working with you now for, I guess, what, it’s been about a year, I’m happy you’re on the show because you have this way of boiling things down to a level that makes sense, and, you know, I don’t say that lightly because I am well aware of how complicated this stuff is. So, welcome to the show, Devin.

DEVIN TENNEY

Well, Iris, thank you for having me. It feels funny to be on the other side of the mic, for once.

IRIS LAWS

Yes. I mean, it’s going to be a good one. So, when we are planning podcast episodes for the year, you were confident that this was the right fit for our January slot. I was curious, why is that?

DEVIN TENNEY

Well, it’s a new year. A lot of people kind of go into it with, you know, new year goals. They, you know, a bit of a reset. They make resolutions that might be, you know, an attempt to form healthy habits. And some even take a harder look at their financial future. Now, what business owners need to realize is that compensation plans and fringe benefits overall feed directly into this goal setting process and can play a critical role in how employees and leaders are feeling heading into the new year. And honestly, I don’t think it’s a problem for corporations and employers to, you know, maybe go into the new year with some resolutions of their own.

IRIS LAWS

Interesting. So, basically, I guess what you’re saying is that comp and ben plans play a role in culture more than just finances?

DEVIN TENNEY

Oh, absolutely. And it’s not only culture. You know, it plays a very strong role in retaining and motivating leaders and employees.

IRIS LAWS

So, if you own a part of the company, then is the thought that maybe you feel less bad about some late nights and some harder projects? Is that the thought?

DEVIN TENNEY

That’s the thought. I mean, equity is a very powerful form of incentive. You know, being an owner is completely different than just being an employee. But, even outside of equity and other things like long-term incentive plans, which we’ll talk about, there’s also certain types of employee benefits that can make a big difference, like de minimis fringe benefits in the office, offering free parking. All these can go a long way in creating an office environment that’s going to incentivize employees to want to come in.

IRIS LAWS

For sure. But I guess my next question is then, what kind of companies can implement some of these plans? You know, I think for some reason, maybe my gut reaction is that these were only for corporations with a bunch of employees, sort of that big corporate world that you think of. But is that the case?

DEVIN TENNEY

You know, great question. No, it’s not for just big corporations. Comp and ben, it’s largely entity, industry, size agnostic. You know, there are certainly some limitations depending on how a business is structured or how large they may be, but by and large, there are numerous incentives across the board for all employers. So, if we start by looking at the executive comp side, I would say that corporations, as a structure, probably have the most flexibility, regardless of size.

There’s a wide array of long-term incentive plans that they can offer. Things like stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock awards, and restricted stock units. They can be given to every employee and motivate retention and company growth. Those are all different ways to transfer equity. But even outside of equity, there are cash-based incentives like current and deferred bonuses and even more exotic structures like phantom stock plans.

IRIS LAWS

Well, what about maybe some flow-throughs or things like S-corporations?

DEVIN TENNEY

Yeah, sure. So, flow-throughs, S-corps, partnerships, yes. Still applicable to those. We’re still going to see some limitations though, because of the flow-through nature. And so, like an S-corp, for example, owners of, you know, larger interests may not actually see any benefit from trying to do deferred compensation since they’re paying tax on it as it’s earned.

When it comes to partnerships, I’d say that they’re probably the most limited in the various offerings at their disposal. I do occasionally see use of things like phantom units or maybe unit options. Most commonly, though, in the partnership world, we’re really going to see the use of profits and interest for executive compensation.

IRIS LAWS

So, Devin, for partnerships then, is really the way that they’re utilizing and strategizing the partnership agreement itself, is that where the flexibility comes in then?

DEVIN TENNEY

Absolutely. Had this conversation with a client yesterday actually. They came in wanting to do a phantom plan. It was not something that they could offer because of what they were trying to achieve, which is what we’ll be kind of talking about here. And so, what we actually came up with was reorganizing them as a partnership so that we could utilize profits, interest, and having a kind of a partner out there as a management group that they would participate in there.

And really, the key to making something like this work is the partnership operating agreement, the special allocations, you know, so on and so forth. Partnerships are a completely different world than corporations.

IRIS LAWS

Perfect. Well, what about employee benefits then if we’ve covered stock comp?

DEVIN TENNEY

You know, so, going from exec comp to employee benefits, you know, you’re not going to see as many restrictions here from like an entity structure necessarily. The primary restrictions you’re going to see from an employee benefit standpoint; it still will be in kind of flow-through entities because partners and greater than 2% S-corp shareholders can’t participate in what’s called a section 125 cafeteria plan.

These are for things like health insurance. You know, most employees get their health insurance excluded from their income. And that’s pursuant to the section 125 cafeteria plans. Well, the thing is that partners and these 2% S-corp shareholder employees, who are also considered partners, are not allowed to participate in a 125 plan and that doing so disqualifies the plan for everybody.

So, it’s really important to make sure that these kinds of plans don’t have partner participation. But I would say for most other employee benefits like working condition, fringe benefits, and de minimis, etc., outside of a few exclusions for partners, pretty much everyone can participate in those benefits.

IRIS LAWS

Okay, so I’m starting to understand a little bit better the delineation between maybe executive comp and employee benefits. But going back to the executive comp side, can you walk us through some of the common terminology, you know, in that massive wad of documents you sent me that I mentioned? I frequently sort of encountered words like grant and vest and exercise and constructive receipt and, you know, I think to understand more fully what those plans are, you kind of need to understand the framework. So, could you go into that a little bit?

DEVIN TENNEY

Oh, you could not be more correct. Understanding these terms is fundamental to really understanding how executive compensation works at its very core. So, when I explain this, I think it’s really best to think about it in steps of progression. And so, you had mentioned grant, vest, exercise, constructive receipt. There’s others, you know, tied with that would be payment and some other things.

Typically, the first thing you’re always going to see is the grant. And that’s when the agreement itself is entered into. And so that agreement, for example, could be a transfer of equity on that date, like a grant of restricted stock awards. Or it’s that it could be a grant and a right to receive something in the future.

Again, that could be property or that could be cash, that you would receive if certain things were to transpire. Those certain things are then the vesting conditions. So vesting is when that right basically gets locked in. The employer now has an obligation to pay that, transfer that equity, or pay that cash once you are vested. There’s no longer a substantial risk of forfeiture of that future right in cash or property. Typically, these are going to be time-based or performance-based, but it can also be tied to some other conditions, like a change in control, for example.

Now exercise, it’s an interesting one. This term, while I would say grant and vest apply across the board, exercise really only applies to like stock options and stock appreciation rights.

Effectively, it’s a term used for the day when the holder of those options or stock appreciation rights exercises their right to receive them, they choose the option now to receive whatever the benefit is. Lastly, you mentioned constructive receipt. I will use that kind of interchangeably with the term payment. In many cases, you know, receipt or payment occurs upon vesting.

So, you get through, let’s say it vests over five years, you finally vest in it. That’s when you’re finally going to have your unrestricted rights and you’re going to receive this transfer of property, or you’re going to get the cash payment. But payment can also occur after vesting, if it is structured as non-qualified deferred compensation. And I’ll say, that’s where this job gets really fun.

DEVIN TENNEY

Or maybe for, employers where it gets really frustrating because there’s a set of very complex and even more punitive rules that dictate non-qualified deferred comp plans and how they’re structured called Section 409A, but that’s really a conversation for a future episode.

IRIS LAWS

I got it. Okay. So my little vocabulary lesson, if I were to summarize, just to make sure that I’m getting all of this, Devin, let’s say in the context of a stock option, right? Grant is when the option to acquire the stock is issued. Right? Vest is when I have a right to acquire the stock, but maybe like not necessarily received the stock yet. Exercise is when the stock is actually purchased and then payment is when I actually receive control over the stock. Yeah? Maybe?

DEVIN TENNEY

You got it.

IRIS LAWS

Cool. So, I guess let’s apply these terms, sort of to real life. How do they interplay with the different types of plans?

DEVIN TENNEY

So, when thinking about those terms grant, vest, exercise, payment, etc.? They’re all really just going to depend on the type of plan. Now, I think the best way to really explain this is to provide a few more examples. The one that you walked us through, the stock option, that was technically a non-qualified stock option. Well, there’s another one.

It’s a tax advantaged version called an incentive stock option. And here there’s actually a fifth category that must be considered. And this occurs after the payment, sale, or exchange. So, with ISOs, the timing of the disposition of these, of the ISO acquired shares, it can result in very favorable tax rates. But if you have something called a disqualifying disposition, you really lose a lot of the benefits of the incentive stock option and that makes it much more comparable to the non-qualified stock options.

So, just there with stock options there are vastly different implications in those terms and what they mean from a tax standpoint. Another comparison is restricted stock awards and restricted stock units or RSAs and RSUs. And these are very commonly confused with each other. But the term grant has vastly different meanings with them. With an RSA, on grant, you actually have a transfer of restricted property.

On day one there is a transfer of restricted stock. This is where you see things like the 83(b) election and choosing if you want it to be taxed now or be taxed later. But, on day one you technically have those shares, dividend rights, voting rights if they’re tied to those shares, etc. An RSU, on the other hand, it does not transfer stock on grant.

Instead, it gives you a right to receive that stock in the future, which is typically a transfer or upon vesting. So, the primary consideration with all of these ultimately comes down to the amount of tax that one might have to pay. And really, outside of equity, there’s tons of cash-based incentives like phantom stock and stock appreciation rights, deferred bonuses, salary reduction arrangement.

IRIS LAWS

OK, Devin, I gotta stop you. I know you, you nerd out on some of this, and this is why I love you. But I don’t think we have time for a full explanation ...

DEVIN TENNEY

All right.

IRIS LAWS

... of each type of plan. But are there any sort of high-level groupings or maybe defining features to plans to give people context, without maybe getting in the weeds there?

DEVIN TENNEY

Yeah. So, equity versus cash I’d say is probably the first and is a very big one. You kind of have to figure out, do we want to give them equity, which a lot of employers don’t as corporations may not be able to, partnerships may not want to, because that employee would have to report, they would no longer be getting W-2s.

They would have scheduled K-1s that they would be receiving. So, it really just depends. But we have to figure out, are we really leaning more on the equity side or on the cash side? Payment upon vesting is another one. Or, do we want to do deferred compensation? So, do we want to have a short-term referral, or do we want to have deferred comp?

And if we want deferred comp, can we even really do it or do the 409A restrictions get in our way? Another big one is going to be the structure of the vesting. You know, how do we want to do that? Do we want it time-based? Performance-based? That’s really where we kind of figure out what we’re trying to incentivize.

It’s tied to the vesting. And then, the payment events. When we have deferred comp, how are we going to pay that? When is it going to be paid? What’s the amount that we’re going to pay and how are we going to determine that amount? There are so many different kinds of variables that have to kind of be considered, really from both sides when trying to, you know, ultimately meet our goals and, you know, still be incentivizing to employees.

IRIS LAWS

Well, I guess that brings me to my next question. You know, I’m guessing that there are certain plans that are more attractive, maybe, to employers while other plans are more attractive to employees. Is that right?

DEVIN TENNEY

Yeah. And this is a conversation I usually have when I am talking about plan design with clients is really walking through kind of an array. And on one side we have the most employee-friendly, on the other side we have the more employer-friendly. And so, arguably, you know, the most employee-friendly, other than an outright grant of equity, would be a grant of restricted stock awards.

You have those shares on day one. You may receive dividend rights or voting rights. You get the opportunity to make an 83(b) election. Do we want to be taxed now or am I not wanting to take the risk? ISOs is another form that I would say is more employee-friendly because of the tax advantaged aspect of it, and employers lose the compensation deduction on that if that tax advantage is maintained.

Where on the other side, things like non-qualified stock options, those can be really expensive to exercise. So, they’re maybe cost-prohibitive. They really only provide for future value and appreciation. Restricted stock units where the shares aren’t transferred until, you know, a subsequent vesting period has been met. Those are really more employer friendly. So, it’s kind of figuring out, you know, what is going to work best for both the employer here to protect themselves while still offering a plan that’s going to be attractive to the employee. You know, at the end of the day, it’s a negotiation.

IRIS LAWS

Yeah. I mean, it certainly sounds like a balancing act, right. And an exercise in priorities from what it sounds like. So, maybe if your goal is company culture and employee satisfaction, maybe your answer will be different than if you are constrained by your financial situation or if you’re more concerned with keeping hold of your leaders.

So, I know for a fact we could talk executive comp all day, but for the sake of our listeners’ time, let’s move to the other side of comp and ben, which is employee benefits. So, I know fringe benefit packages are often seen as a key part of how they negotiate salaries or, you know, even are recruited to a company. So, what kinds of things have you found to be effective motivators for people?

DEVIN TENNEY

Sure. So, you know, on the employee benefits side, you know, most commonly what I work with would be fringe benefits. And what’s cool about fringe benefits is for many of them, they can be excluded from income, as long as the employer offers them and, you know, certain requirements are met, etc. These can be things like working condition fringe benefits, you know, maybe reimbursements of accountable plans, you know, flying on a company jet, for example. If it’s related to, you know, the business, then that’s not taxable to the employee.

But if you all of a sudden bring your spouse on and you do other things on that trip, then you know, some of those expenses may be reallocated to where they are compensation in nature. We kind of discussed that a little bit on one of our prior episodes when we talked about personal use of corporate aircraft.

But there are just a lot of different fringe benefits that employers really should be taking a look at. Are they really, you know, taking full advantage of them, or are they offering certain de minimis fringe benefits. At the same time, are they doing so in a compliant manner? If you’re giving gift cards and you’re treating it as an income exclusion de minimis fringe benefit, well, unfortunately, you probably shouldn’t be doing that because it’s a cash equivalent and it doesn’t qualify for the exclusion.

So, I would say that, on the employee benefit side, there certainly are a lot of different alternatives out there, you know, and then I say alternatives. I typically try to avoid using the word options since options are a form of incentive. But yeah, there certainly are a lot of different alternatives that I think employers need to consider, especially in light of, you know, a lot of the changes that have occurred.

IRIS LAWS

Well, that’s right. The first thing that came to mind, having talked ad nauseum now about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and some of the different regs that have come out. You know, there have been a lot of changes, I think, right? And, you know, I mean, I’m trying to think through the list that I remember for some reason was the bicycle benefit comes to mind? I don’t know why that’s the one that sticks out.

DEVIN TENNEY

I don’t know; that one always comes to mind first. Always. But it’s the one. I don’t know if anybody ever uses it, maybe, outside of California. But yeah. So, there have been a lot of changes. They really started back in 2017 with the TCJA, and we’re seeing ramifications of that as recently as now. As recently as today, just from changes made back with the TCJA almost a decade ago.

But since TCJA, we’ve seen a lot of changes in the employee benefit and qualified plan space with the SECURE and SECURE 2.0 acts. And that’s actually something we talked about in Episode 8, with Dave Graf, an ERISA attorney who works with our firm, that we brought on, and him and I had a nice conversation about it.

And, actually, on that episode, we also talked about some of the changes from OB3. You know, there were changes to executive compensation, with some new control group rules for 162(m), that are having pretty significant implications for tax exempt. The change to section 4960, this $1 million limitation on renumeration. OB3 also expanded certain employee benefits like employer-provided childcare.

And it also, like you just brought up, made some of the TCJA sunsets permanent. So, the bicycle exclusion was supposed to come back and it was the exclusion. The suspension, I should say, was made permanent by OB3. The same was done for moving expenses. Now, I would say that the biggest change that I want to talk about right now for 2026 was also something that was changed with TCJA.

And while many thought that the OB3 might extend a deduction, they did not touch it. And so that was the deduction for employer-provided meals. So, for 2026 and beyond, employer-provided meals are no longer deductible. So, you know this one hits close to home. Working, and Iris I’m sure you can, you probably did the same. Busy season as an associate, a senior, a manager, you’re working long nights, you’re in the office, and, typically, you know, our employers would provide dinners for us, right? Well, those dinners are no longer deductible by the employer. This is the same with coffee and snacks, etc. They’re no longer deductible.

Now, I still want to point out, because we have two sides of the coin. We have the employer deduction side, I should say, and we have the income exclusion, the fringe benefit side. So, one side for the employer and one side for the employee. It’s effectively the matching principle, right? Something we saw also with TCJA with the parking lot rules. In many cases, they said if you want to provide employer-provided parking, great.

Employees have an exclusion for employer-provided parking up to a certain dollar amount. But you had to do some testing now to see if the employer still got to deduct those amounts. Same thing kind of here. They’re going back to the matching principle. So, we can still exclude from income these, you know, fringe benefits, right? Meals can still be excludable, but the employer will no longer get the deduction.

Conversely, you could make it taxable to them treated as compensation. And the employer will now maintain that deduction. But it’s no longer best of both worlds for both parties when it comes to employer-provided meals.

IRIS LAWS

So, you’re telling me my Treat Tuesdays are no longer? Is that what your breaking to me, Devin?

DEVIN TENNEY

Yeah. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

IRIS LAWS

Well, we’ve been fairly optimistic, I think, mostly, about all of this. But earlier, you did mention issues with partner participation and 125 plans. As a former partnership SME, or subject matter enthusiast, as we call it here at Forvis Mazars, this is actually something I encountered as well. So, something I did want to bring up. The reality, right, is that there are some real risks involved if you don’t pay attention to these plans. Is that right?

DEVIN TENNEY

Yeah. 100%. I won’t say that this is an extremely common mistake, but it certainly is a fairly significant one. And you usually see it with partnerships, where partners are still receiving forms W-2 to report their compensation, and not schedule K-1s with, you know, Box 4 guaranteed payments reporting that amount. And they’re still participating in the Section 125 cafeteria plans for purposes of their, you know, health insurance income exclusion.

And what’s bad about this? It’s not just that they’re ineligible and now they personally have some exposure. No, the risk here is that if you have participation by anyone that is not eligible to participate in that plan, the entire plan becomes disqualified for everybody. The whole thing gets blown up. It’s not a great situation to be in, particularly if it’s caught.

So, you know, if you do find yourself in that kind of situation, I certainly would recommend reaching out to your trusted tax professional, to try to make things right. Typically it’s going back and trying to unwind the partner participation in that plan by correcting, you know, prior year W-2s or, etc. So, just something to kind of keep an eye on, maybe as one of your new year’s resolutions.

IRIS LAWS

There you go. Well, you know, I think that is one mistake, clearly, that some companies make. But I know there are a lot of traps that, based on all these complex rules, some people can fall into. I’m sure, you know, there’s many, many of them. But if we were maybe to narrow them down to like, let’s say, three things, what would you see most often as the mistakes that people make?

DEVIN TENNEY

Well, let me do three for the employer and one for an employee, and I’ll start with the employee. And that would be the 83(b) election, you know, because that’s a gamble. And I have seen a lot of employees that file the election, and ultimately, they don’t vest. The substantial risk of forfeiture on their restricted stock award never lapses. And they paid a bunch of tax on something when they filed their 83(b) election.

Now they’re asking how to, you know, to take the deduction or the credit that they should have for that tax they paid on property they ultimately never actually received, or at least that they had to forfeit. And there is no credit, there is no offset, there is no deduction. And so, if making an 83(b) election, it’s certainly something that an employee really needs to think about, but they only have 30 days to make it from the date of grant.

So, that’s also missed all the time. And when the election is filed, it’s irrevocable. You can’t change it. If you miss the filing, you can’t late file it. If you file it and you didn’t want to after the fact, unfortunately it’s set in stone. It is irrevocable. So, on the employee side, 83(b) elections is certainly something to consider.

On the employer side, most of the issues and the biggest issues that I see are going to involve non-qualified deferred compensation. Now, the primary issue here is, again, that punitive, restrictive, draconian provision, 409A. Effectively it eliminates employer and employee discretion over the timing and amount of a payment. It is set in stone. And so, there are two ways that you can have noncompliance and issues with 409A and that’s a document failure and an operational failure.

So, with document failures the agreement itself is not compliant. You could have left out a single word or a sentence that you should have or should not have included. That all, just that alone, blows the entire plan up. And it can kind of have cascading consequences for a bunch of other plans and agreements. So, I am always strongly encouraging employers to review their plans, even if they don’t think it is a deferred compensation plan. Still review it to just make sure that it was drafted compliantly.

And then on the flip side, you have operational failure. So, the document itself may be perfect, but if you don’t operate it compliantly that still can violate 409A and create a lot of problems. I mentioned that it’s punitive. That’s a 20% excise tax, premium interest tax, immediate inclusion of all vested income, etc.

And so, it’s extremely important that anyone who was administering the plan, and that could be like internal HR and payroll and, maybe, you know, parties that are not well versed in 409A, it’s imperative that they understand how to properly operate these plans. And it can be something as simple as with stock options, which can have hundreds of thousands of participants.

And if you’re a private company and you were granting these with strike prices that you cannot substantiate that equaled or exceeded the fair market value of the underlying stock on the date of grant. Well, you are now subject to 409A, and because exercise is almost synonymous with discretion, it’s not compliant with 409A.

So, that’s an operational failure right there that I commonly see that I consider to be a nightmare scenario. So, certainly something to take into consideration. Two others that I’ll just touch on quickly. Again, with deferred comp. One, there’s a special rule for the deduction timing for non-qualified deferred compensation. Effectively, that deduction falls on whatever return includes the date 12/31 of whenever the year that payment was made.

This can be an issue for fiscal year filers. It’s just a timing difference really in this case. But still, something they should be aware of. Where it really becomes important, where this is critical, is with changes in control. If you are looking at selling your company and there’s going to be maybe a huge payout, because of a payment upon change, you control, be aware that if this is not going to close on 12/31, you need to carefully consider what’s going to happen to that deduction.

Could it be lost? Could it be transferred? Are we going to have enough income to, for that deduction to really offset moving forward? It’s really, really important for this to be considered. And unfortunately, it’s just not something that is brought up by a lot of legal counsel when going through due diligence.

And then the last issue that I see is an issue with FICA taxation. There’s something called a special timing rule for non-qualified deferred comp. Basically, deferred compensation is taxable when it vests. Remember, with deferred comp, vesting and payment usually occur in different years. Well for FICA, you need to determine what the value of that payment is on the day that it vests. And then you need to do the FICA taxation at that time on that value.

What’s important about this, it’s an employee-friendly rule, okay? And any additional appreciation on that amount will no longer be subject to FICA. And so, if you miss it, you default to the general timing rule. And all of a sudden, all that additional appreciation on this payment, there could be years after vesting with tons of appreciation.

All of it’s now going to be potentially subject to FICA. And oftentimes this is paid after employment, after retirement. If you had done the FICA taxation while they’re employed, they very likely would have already been over the Social Security limit. Well, they’re no longer working in retirement. And so, there’s even more tax. So, I’d say it’s crucial if you have deferred compensation, make sure you’re complying with 409A, make sure you understand the deduction timing rules, and make sure that you’re doing the special timing rule appropriately for those payments.

IRIS LAWS

Well, we’ve gotten an overview of the options, and maybe some warnings on how not to mess things up. But how in your practice, Devin, do you help people navigating all of this craziness?

DEVIN TENNEY

You know, I’m glad you asked, Iris. So, I do this almost daily. I’m on the phone with clients. And we’re really just talking through this. My goal is to really make this easy. I want to hold your hand and walk you through this so that we can identify what’s ultimately going to be the best form of incentive for you. How can we maximize your use of fringe benefits? I want to hold your hand.

I want to walk you through this. I want to make sure that what we then ultimately structure and put in place is compliant, so that if you do sell your company in 3 or 5 years, etc., all of a sudden we’re not going to have this surprise nightmare situation.

You know, if we’re going to sell our company, it’s one of the most stressful times of, you know, owners’ lives. But also one of the most exciting. And the last thing they want to do is find out, a week before a close, that there’s an issue that’s been discovered with one of their deferred comp plans or with their cafeteria plan, or with other things we haven’t even talked about, like section 280G, Golden Parachute Payments. It’s a, you know, very restrictive limitation that applies to corporations. So, that is, ultimately what I offer is peace of mind helping employers move forward with their compensation goals.

IRIS LAWS

Well, it all sounds like a great way to kick off the year. So, no time like the present to reach out, am I right?

DEVIN TENNEY

100%. Not something you want to sit on. You catch it now, you might be able to fix it.

IRIS LAWS

Well, thanks for chatting today with me, Devin.

DEVIN TENNEY

Absolutely.

IRIS LAWS

Each episode we’ll bring what we call a Focused FORsight of the week, an article or a webinar that might be of interest to you. This week’s Focused FORsight is an article that Devin wrote called “IRS Provides Guidance to Individuals on Tips and Overtime Deductions.” It takes a look at the new guidance related to the tips and overtime deductions introduced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. If you haven’t talked with your HR group, your payroll company, your legal department, or your employees on this one, it’s time to do that.

So, that’s our show. Thank you for joining. Remember to subscribe and listen in for the next episode of the podcast. Until next time.

ANNOUNCER

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