Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input.

How to maximize small business 401k contribution?
My understanding is that to make the $18,000 elective deferral in this case, you need to pay yourself at least $18,000.  There will be some tax on that for social security and Medicare, so you'll actually need to pay yourself a bit more to cover that too. The employer contribution is limited to 25% of your total compensation.  The $18,000 above counts, but if you want to max out on the employer side, you'll need to pay yourself $140,000 salary since 25% of $140,000 is the $35,000 that you want to put into the 401k from the employer side. There are some examples from the IRS here that may help: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/one-participant-401-k-plans I know that you're not a one-participant plan, but some of the examples may help anyway since they are not all specific to one-participant plans.