Author Topic: what is included in compensation on form 990?  (Read 1090 times)

mistymoney

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what is included in compensation on form 990?
« on: June 11, 2023, 10:32:33 AM »
Thinking this is the right board for this as this is a filed tax form.

I was recently delving into some published 990 forms for normative salary info. Wondering if it is just salary and bonus, or if it includes benefits, and if so, which ones?

For 401k - is the match included?
If there is a % salary into the 401k that is made by employer but no salary deferral required is that different than a salary match?
does this answer change if ee is vested/not vested for 990 reporting?

employer made HSA contribution?

employer portion of health/dental insurance?

Life insurance that is "free", but the cost of it shows up on stubs and you have to pay taxes on the premium as income?

Never knew these existed before, so any info would be appreciated.


lhamo

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Re: what is included in compensation on form 990?
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2023, 12:04:00 PM »
Info for highly compensated employees (generally the upper end of the upper management tier) is in Section J part 2.  It is currently broken out by base compensation, bonus, "other" compensation (probably things like different taxable allowances, also severance), retirement/other deferred compensation and non-taxable benefits (probably stuff like health and life insurance.  I believe the amounts in the respective columns reflect only EMPLOYER PAID amounts -- so for example in the retirement column the amount the employee themselves directed to a retirement plan would not be included there, since that money was paid out in salary and then put into the retirement bucket by the employee.  But employer contribution to retirement plans would fall in this column.

Be cautious about using this as the source for "normative" info, as orgs only need to report these details for highly compensated employees who may be subject to caps on their benefits depending on how many employees overall are contributing to retirement, etc.  You cannot guess percentage match, etc. by looking at these numbers.  Orgs may also have a tiered approach to benefits -- for example, at my old non-profit, regular employees started off with a 5% retirement match that went up to 7.5% and eventually 10% based on years of service.  But again, highly compensated employees would not have gotten those amounts because of IRS caps.

Highly recommend people look at this part of the PF990 for an organization they are employed by, applying to, or considering donating to.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!