Purpose
In Benefit, some saving plans for the US are heavily regulated by the IRS (Tax office). There is limit on the amount the employee is allowed to contribute each year towards these plans (401k, 457 and 403b plans or HSA). In SAP these limits are applied via constants as detailed below.
Overview
In this page it will be detailed how the contribution limits are set for standard contributions, for catch-up contributions, as well as for highly compensated employee’s contributions. This will be done for 401k plan, then 457/415 and 403b plans (these are the main IRS regulate plan for the US).
I will also be detailing the limit for HSA plans.
Standard contribution
All the limits in the benefit saving plans are applied via constants in table V_T511P; the amounts are set up by the IRS and reviewed every year. SAP usually provides a yearly note with all the required changes (see related notes section below).
The first important constant is 401KS 401(k) Base Salary Limit. Which is the annual salary limit, this constant means that if an employee reaches this annual salary limit his/her contribution towards saving plans (standard and catch-up) will stop irrespective of the annual contribution limit detailed below:
The constant for employee saving plan standard contributions are:
1-401KL Combined lim for DEFERed plans
This means that the employee will not be able to contribute to any saving plans; he/her is enrolled to, and set as 'Qualified' plan in table V_5UBA_C, once the amount set there is reached
2-402GL 402(g) lim for pretax elective
3-415CL 415(c) lim for defined contrib
both are limit referring to 403b plan (so to be checked by the system the plan must be set as '403b' in table V_5UBA_C).
Catch-up contribution
1- 401CL Catch-up Contribution Limit
This is the limit that apply to all 401k plan (set as qualified in V_5UBA_C) toward employees catch-up contributions
2- 457CL 457 catch-up contrib. limit
This is the limit that apply to all 457 plan (set as 457 in V_5UBA_C) toward employees catch-up contributions
Highly compensated employee limit
The contribution limits are applied depending on the settings of the following constants in table V_T511P:
1-Standard employee saving plan contribution limit
if HCSLM is set to 1 the 401K Employee (EE) pre-tax contributions will stop
if HCSLM is set to 0 the 401K EE pre-tax contributions will continue (until limit set in 401KL is reached)
2-Catch-up employee saving plan contribution limit
if HCSLC is set to 1 the 401K EE catch-up contributions will stop
if HCSLM is set to 0 the 401K EE catch-up contributions will continue (until limit set in 401CL is reached)
3-Employer contribution limit
If HCEER is set to 1 the 401K employer contribution will stop
if HCEER is set to 0 the 401K employer contributions will continue
4-403B plan
Same as above but with the following constants: HCEEB HCE 403B for employee contribution
HCERB HCE 403B for employer contribution
Sap note 1602018 Limits for retirement, savings plans in tax year 2012
SAP note 1528077 Limits for retirement, savings plans in tax year 2011
SAP note 1657182 Highly compensated employee saving plan contribution limit