I'll try to keep this short.
So currently, with one check to go, Fidelity has my 2016 401k contribution as $18287.62, over the $18k limit. My check stub shows the contribution as $17,672.88.
Although I don't get paid until tomorrow, I can see the latest check stub which pushes the contribution to $18k, however, they will be sending another $327.12 to Fidelity pushing it even more over the limit.
I looked through the contributions on Fidelity and believe I know what happened. We got paid on 12/31/2015 last year. Fidelity usually makes the purchase the day after (Friday) which would have been Jan 1. Since that is a holiday, they made the purchase on Jan 4. So basically my company is attributing that 401k contribution to 2015, whereas Fidelity is attributing it to 2016.
I've called Fidelity and they referred me to payroll, with whom I'm currently on hold. She doesn't seem to understand any of this so it should be fun. I was wondering if any of you know how this should be handled and how it will work out. Will Fidelity have to change the contribution date and put that first contribution back into 2015? Or will it stand as a 2016 contribution and they will somehow have to refund me the $614.74 that was overpaid? And is this somehow going to come back and penalize me because that overage is already in the market earning a return?