Employer messed up my 401k start date and lost match
Administrative errors during onboarding, such as incorrect birthdates or missed eligibility dates, can delay retirement plan contributions for years and risk lost employer matches. Fixing these historical mistakes often requires coordinating with payroll companies or sorting out complex multi-year excess contribution rules.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Contacting HR and payroll providers to request corrections
- 2Filing complaints with the Department of Labor or EBSA
- 3Using IRS voluntary correction programs (EPCRS VCP) to demand missed deferrals, matching, and earnings
- 4submitting broker removal of excess contribution forms for recent years
- 5consulting a CPA or Enrolled Agent before filing historical corrections
- 6taking a normal Roth distribution to eliminate historical excess
- 7filing prior-year forms attached to amended returns
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“So I started with this company 4 years ago. 401k was supposed to kick in after 4 months. I waited nothing. I asked my boss she told me it should start automatically when I am eligible. I waited. I waited nothing. I ask her again she tells me it should be automatic again. So I wait. Now its well past when it should have started like 2 years. I call the payroll company, when I was hired my employer listed my birthday as the day I was hired so because I wasnt 18 years old(im 47)I wasnt eligible for 401k. They didnt notice I was zero years old? What can I do? What should I do? Any help would be great!”source ↗
“I'm helping my parents clean up an IRA mistake and want to make sure we're handling this correctly.”source ↗
“My mom made these Roth IRA contributions... That leaves the older excess contributions... 14,000 total historical excess”source ↗
“I'm mainly looking for people who have dealt with the same multi-year excess Roth/Form 5329 situation.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3How to get a vendor to actually fix a billing error
- 2Will withdrawing a 401k make my parent lose Medicaid?