topic Self-Employed Simple IRA matching contribution in Retirement tax questions

Self-Employed Simple IRA matching contribution

kpfaff — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:12:33 GMT

Hi!

I've entered our self-employed employee contribution of $14K on line 5a of the "Keogh, SEP, & SIMPLE Contribution worksheet" but when I enter our 3% employer match on line 5d of $22 I am getting an error "line 5d should not be greater than line 5c." I have played around with all different fixes but it won't allow me to contribute more that 14K for employer match. Help!

Thanks,
Kayla

Re: Self-Employed Simple IRA matching contribution

dmertz — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 01:02:46 GMT

TurboTax is correctly flagging as invalid an employer matching contribution that exceeds the employee contribution. Matching contributions are a dollar-for-dollar match of what the employee contributes, limited to 3% of compensation, so matching contributions must equal employee contributions unless limited to a lower amount by compensation. (A full $14k of matching contributions would require $466,667 or more of compensation.)

Perhaps you are confusing the 3% match with the optional 2% non-elective employer contribution. However when determining the 2% non-elective employer contribution, only $305,000 of compensation is permitted to be considered for 2022, making the maximum possible 2% non-elective contribution $6,100.

Re: Self-Employed Simple IRA matching contribution

kpfaff — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 15:52:24 GMT

Great, thanks so much for your help!