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unfair discrimination of Safe Harbor 401k plan

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beardoggie

Junior Member
I reside in Florida.
Is it legal to discriminate against a specific group of HCE employees when the NHCE employees receive a company given 3% Safe Harbor and we don't?

I recently noticed that I was paying my own 3% Safe Harbor monies to myself, instead of the company paying me this (as I am an associate HCE). I didn't realize that I was paying for own 3% for several years as my company sends an email labeled TO ALL that mentions that it will be sending 3% to employees (which I assumed I was an employee). Very confusing then to find out that I wasn't receiving this.

It has been difficult finding information about the plan, but I have since learned that my company has three designations of HCE employees: Associate, shareholder and owner. The associates are allowed to set aside their own 3% Safe Harbor. This seems unfair which may be unfortunate, but I need to know if we associate HCE's have any rights as we are not treated as the NHCE employee class of wage earners.

For background information, please note that employees and all levels of HCE's have traditional 401k. Profit sharing is optionally given yearly to NCHE employees and the upper levels of HCEs (not associate HCEs). The company consists of many low-paid NHCEs who would not contribute if not given the automatic 3%.

Look forward to your reply.
 


ecmst12

Senior Member
It is perfectly legal to designate classes of employees like this. As long as the classes are not based on race, religion, or other protected characteristic, it is not only legal, but very common.
 

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