This is really helpful information everyone! I'm new to having multiple retirement accounts and had no idea about the combined loan limits. My HR department at my main job told me the same thing Miguel's coworker said - that I could borrow $50k from each plan since they have different sponsors. Reading through all these responses, it sounds like I need to be much more careful about this. The point about what happens if you leave one employer while having outstanding loans from both plans is especially concerning. I was actually considering taking a loan from my 403b to help with some home repairs, but now I'm wondering if I should just stick with one plan or maybe look into other financing options instead. Has anyone found good resources (besides the AI tools mentioned) to double-check what their plan administrators are telling them about loan rules? I want to make sure I'm getting accurate information before making any decisions.

Another resource worth checking out is the Summary Plan Description (SPD) for each of your retirement plans. Your plan administrator is required to provide this to you, and it should clearly outline the specific loan provisions for that particular plan. While the IRS sets the overall framework, each plan can have its own additional restrictions. Also, if you're still getting conflicting information after checking the official IRS publications Brandon mentioned, consider reaching out to a fee-only financial planner who specializes in retirement planning. They'll be familiar with the loan aggregation rules and can help you understand how they apply to your specific situation with multiple employers. One last thing - document everything when you speak with plan administrators. If they give you incorrect information and you act on it, having that in writing could be important later. I always follow up phone calls with an email summarizing what was discussed, just to have a paper trail.

Great question about the tax savings! I was in a similar situation last year with about $20k in 1099 income and can share some real numbers. After business deductions, I had roughly $17k in net self-employment income. I was able to contribute about $3,400 as an employer contribution to my Solo 401k (roughly 20% of net SE income after the self-employment tax adjustment). At my 22% marginal tax rate, that saved me about $748 in federal taxes, plus another $213 in state taxes (6.25% rate). So nearly $1,000 in immediate tax savings, not counting the decades of tax-deferred growth ahead. Setting up the Solo 401k took maybe 2 hours total - most of that was just comparing brokerages and reading through the paperwork. For almost $1,000 in savings on $18k income, that's definitely worth the time investment. Plus once it's set up, contributing in future years is super simple. The key thing to remember is that even if you can't max out the contribution limits, ANY amount you can put away is reducing your current tax burden dollar-for-dollar at your marginal rate. With your income level, you're probably looking at significant savings even with a smaller contribution.

Just wanted to add another perspective here - I'm a tax preparer and see this situation come up a lot with my clients. One thing that often gets overlooked is that you need to have actual self-employment income (net profit) to contribute to a Solo 401k, not just the gross 1099 amount. Make sure you're accounting for any business expenses you can deduct first - things like home office deduction, business equipment, professional development, etc. These will reduce your net self-employment income but also reduce your overall tax burden. Also, don't forget that your 1099 income is subject to self-employment tax (15.3%) in addition to regular income tax, so the tax savings from retirement contributions are even more valuable since they reduce both. The Solo 401k contribution reduces your regular income tax but not the SE tax - just wanted to clarify that since it sometimes confuses people. If you're planning to have ongoing 1099 income, definitely set up that Solo 401k now. Even if this year's contribution isn't huge, having it ready for future years is worth it.

Is anyone using QuickBooks for their 1099 reporting? I'm wondering if it's worth switching to. Our current accounting software makes the 1099 process really cumbersome.

This is such a common issue - you're definitely not alone! I went through something similar when I took over our AP process. One thing that helped me was creating a simple vendor audit spreadsheet to track everything systematically. I listed all vendors who received over $600, their entity type from W-9s, service vs. goods classification, and payment methods. What really surprised me was how many "corporations" in our system were actually LLCs or sole proprietorships when I actually looked at their W-9s. The previous person had just assumed anything with "Inc." in the name was a corporation, but several were actually LLCs doing business as something else. For your immediate situation, I'd prioritize getting current year compliance right first, then work backwards on previous years. The IRS is generally more understanding when you're proactively fixing mistakes rather than waiting for them to find them during an audit. Document everything you're doing to correct the process - it shows good faith effort if questions come up later. Also, don't forget about the de minimis threshold - it's $600 per year, not per payment. So if you paid a vendor $400 in March and $300 in October, they still need a 1099 even though each individual payment was under $600.

Don't forget you can use tax loss harvesting to offset some of those gains if you sold other investments at a loss in 2024. I know the market was volatile last year, so you might have some losses you can use. Also, your holding period matters a lot here. Since you held these for more than a year, you'll get the long-term capital gains rate, which is much lower than the short-term rate (which is taxed as ordinary income). For most people that's either 0%, 15%, or 20% depending on your income bracket.

I went through something very similar with my old 401k rollover stocks that I'd been accumulating for years. One thing that really helped me was creating a simple spreadsheet to track down what I could find. Start with what you have - even if your online account only shows recent years, print out or save everything you can access. Then call your brokerage and ask specifically for a "complete transaction history" or "cost basis report" - don't just ask for statements. Many brokerages can generate this even if it's not readily available online. For the dividend reinvestments that Summer mentioned, those are crucial! Each reinvested dividend creates a new tax lot with its own cost basis. If you can find your annual tax documents from previous years (1099-DIV forms), those will show the dividend amounts that were reinvested. Also, double-check if your brokerage reported some basis info to the IRS but just didn't include it on your 1099-B. Sometimes they file a separate form. TurboTax should prompt you if there are discrepancies, but it's worth manually checking. The good news is that with dollar-cost averaging over 8-9 years, you likely have a pretty good average cost basis that will reduce your tax burden significantly compared to if the IRS assumed zero basis. Take your time to reconstruct what you can - it's worth the effort for a $12,000 sale.

This happened to me last year! Check if your company switched payroll providers or systems. When my company switched from ADP to Workday, they messed up everyone's tax withholding settings in the transition. Took them almost 3 months to fix it but they eventually refunded everyone the excess withholding.

Have you checked if your W-4 withholding elections got reset or changed during your company's year-end processing? Sometimes HR systems automatically revert everyone back to default withholding settings (like claiming 0 allowances or single filing status) at the start of a new tax year, especially if they're updating their payroll software. This could explain both the Social Security and Medicare increases if your withholding went from a higher number of allowances to fewer allowances. Even though FICA taxes have set percentages, the system might be calculating them differently based on your updated W-4 information. I'd suggest logging into your employee portal to double-check your current W-4 settings and compare them to what you had filed previously. If they changed, you can submit a new W-4 to get back to your preferred withholding level.