We wrote about retirement plans for self-employed individuals last July. You can find that article at: http://www.mdtaxes.com/news0706.html. While the maximum contributions might have changed a little from 2006, the percentage of your income that you can put away, as well as the rules for eligibility and matching for you staff, hasn't changed.

You should probably consider the SIMPLE IRA or a Safe Harbor 401k. Each of these plans put the bulk of your employees' retirement savings on their shoulders. If you're older than your staff, there are more sophisticated profit sharing plans you can add to your company's 401k plan, call "new comparability plans", which allow you to allocate a larger percentage of your profit sharing plan contribtion to your own account.

Finally, don't overlook that certain types of plans protect your assets better than others. My understanding is that you get more protection with a 401k than you would with a SIMPLE IRA, but that's a question for your lawyer. And I'm not a lawyer.

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