Sponsoring a Retirement Plan for Your Dental Practice

One key to attracting and retaining top-notch talent at your dental practice is offering employees a retirement plan. Once you decide you want a retirement plan in your dental practice, you should contact an experienced tax attorney or dental practice attorney who is familiar with retirement plans. Together, you can choose the right type of retirement plan, put the plan in place, and manage the plan as your dental practice grows. Nardone Limited is familiar with the unique needs of dental practices to recruit and retain dependable, high-quality employees. For more of our insight, see Nardone Limited’s posts on compensating associate dentists and healthcare options and fringe benefits for your dental practice’s employees.

Should you offer a retirement plan?

In addition to attracting potential employees and making current employees happy, a retirement plan has many benefits for dental practice owners. Employer contributions to the retirement plan are tax-deductible. Tax credits and other incentives for starting a plan may reduce the cost of setting up and administering a retirement plan in your dental practice. Payroll deductions make it easy for employees to contribute and improve their financial security in retirement. Further, as a participant in the plan, you will help secure your own retirement.

What type of retirement plan should you offer?

The guidance of an experienced tax professional will help you think ahead toward retirement to choose the right retirement plan to establish in your dental practice. Your dental practice may choose to start an IRA, defined-contribution plan, or defined-benefit plan for your employees. A key advantage to IRA plans is that they are relatively easy to set up and maintain. Defined contribution plans are useful if it is important for your employees to have a high level of salary deferral. Defined-benefit plans are comforting to employees because this type of plan provides a fixed, pre-established benefit for employees.

Federal Laws Governing Retirement Benefits

If your dental practice provides a retirement plan, employees are protected by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regarding their rights to participate and receive retirement funds if they leave the dental practice. You should contact an employment attorney to discuss how ERISA impacts any retirement plan you implement at your dental practice, because it can be very complex. Generally, ERISA requires that all employees age 21 and over should be allowed to participate in your retirement plan after one year of service. ERISA also requires part time and temporary workers to be included under some circumstances. ERISA sets minimum requirements for vesting and minimum contributions, which vary from plan to plan.

Contact Nardone Limited

If you have any concerns about employment matters or tax matters at your dental practice, specifically regarding retirement plans for your employees, you should contact Nardone Limited. Nardone Limited, a Columbus, Ohio law firm, provides specialized dental practice representation across the state of Ohio. The dental practice attorneys and employment attorneys at Nardone Limited represent dentists in such diverse areas as: (i) buying and selling dental practices, (ii) asset purchase agreements, (iii) employment contracts, (iv) labor and employment representation, (v) human resource representation, (vi) Ohio Dental Board representation, (vii) lease agreements, (viii) real estate purchase agreements, (ix) tax planning, and (x) estate planning. The staff at Nardone Limited understand that a dental practice is a business and strive to handle transactions while minimizing each client’s time spent away from the office. Whether your practice is beginning, transitioning, or encountering adversity, Nardone Limited provides the legal and tax planning guidance your practice needs. Contact Nardone Limited today to discuss your practice and how Nardone Limited may help you.