Sep's and Unions

[rfahey]

I have an LLC where the 2 owners take a draw. They have 2 other employees.

All 4 of these people are covered by a union with collective bargained benefits.

The owners are only in the union to get health insurance ( but they are still part of the small union pension plan )

Is there any way they can exclude the common law employees under the union exclusion rule, but include themselves only in a SEP plan for the LLC ?

THank you.

[Gary Lesser]

No. It might be different if the owners were not eligible to participate in the union plan. In other words, if retirement benefits were not the subject of good faith collective bargaining for owners then they could be in a SEP. A letter from the union to that effect should be kept with the SEP plan's administrative files.

The owners may have to be unionized to work on a site; but negotiating benefits for them is entirely another matter.

Hope this helps.