Adding a Safe Harbor provision can confidently address this issue while providing important benefits to your company and employees.
You already know that a 401(k) is a very popular retirement plan and, like other plan designs, it allows your employees to take advantage of tax deferrals on contributions and earnings while their money accumulates for retirement.
To enjoy this special status, the IRS put in place rules to assure your plan benefits rank and file employees and not just company owners and highly compensated employees. These are called nondiscrimination rules and there are three tests that must be performed each year to determine whether your plan measures up.
Safe Harbor Match
To satisfy the requirement and encourage plan participation, you may choose to offer a Safe Harbor Match. The Basic Match formula provides a 100% match on the first 3% of deferral compensation, plus a 50% match on deferrals between 3% and 5%.