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The County of San Diego offers retirement plans for employees like you to put aside money from each paycheck toward retirement. These plans can help bridge the gap between what you have in your pension and Social Security, and how much you’ll need in retirement. They allow you to build a retirement savings account using automatic payroll deductions that go into investments you select from a wide variety of investment options and access to a Personal Retirement Consultant and Nationwide’s Retirement Specialists. The available plans include:
- 457(b) Traditional Deferred Compensation Plan — tax-deferred (pre-tax), available to all County and Court employees who receive a check through the County of San Diego
- 457(b) Roth Deferred Compensation Plan — after-tax, available to all County and Court employees who receive a check through the County of San Diego
- 401(a) Incentive Retirement Deferred Compensation Plan — tax-deferred (pre-tax), and available to all full-time, benefited County and Court employees within the first 90 calendar days after date of hire
For more information about each plan, including what you can contribute and to compare the plans side-by-side, check out the Plan Comparison Chart. If you would like to view official County Deferred Compensation Program Plan Documents, please call our Customer Solutions Center to receive a copy.
Neither Nationwide nor its representatives may offer investment, tax or legal advice. You should consult your own counsel before making decisions about County of San Diego 457(b) Plan and 401(a) Plan participation.
Retirement Specialists will work with you to combine or consolidate your other eligible retirement accounts into your Plan. This may make managing your retirement investments a little easier.
Qualified retirement plans, deferred compensation plans and individual retirement accounts are all different, including fees and when you can access funds. Assets rolled over from your account(s) may be subject to surrender charges, other fees and/or a 10% tax penalty if withdrawn before age 59½.
You can find the incoming assets form you need on our Forms page.
The money you save for retirement is usually taxed in one of two ways:
- Tax-deferred - instead of paying federal income taxes when contributions are made, you pay them when you start taking withdrawals. Assuming no withdrawals are made until you retire, you may be in a lower tax bracket when the taxes are eventually paid.
- Roth (After-tax) - you pay taxes on the contributions when you make them, you might be able to later withdraw both the contributions and the earnings on those contributions tax-free, if certain conditions are met.*
Tax withholding information:
- Withholding on eligible rollover distributions – Eligible rollover distributions include lump sum and partial lump distributions; the taxable portion of your eligible rollover distribution that is not actually rolled over is subject to a 20% federal income tax withholding. You may not waive this withholding. For example, if you elect to receive a taxable eligible rollover distribution of $5,000, the Plan will pay you only $4,000 and will send to the IRS $1,000 as income tax withholding. You will receive a Form 1099-R from the Plan reporting the full $5,000 as a distribution from the Plan. The $1,000 withholding amount applies against any federal income tax you may owe for the year. The direct rollover is the only means of avoiding this 20% withholding. Note that taxes and penalties with regard to the distribution may exceed the 20% withheld.
- Withholding on distributions not eligible for rollover – the 20% withholding described above does not apply to any taxable portion of your distribution that is not an eligible rollover distribution; this includes periodic payments and Required Minimum Distributions (RMD). You may elect whether to have federal income tax withholding apply to that portion. If you do not wish to have any income taxes withheld on that portion of your distribution, or if you wish to have an amount other than 10%* withheld, you will need to sign and date IRS Form W-4P.**
You will receive a 1099-R for any distributions that details the gross amount of the distribution and any taxes withheld. Income from Plan distributions is taxed at your regular ordinary rate. Your ordinary rate may exceed the amounts withheld described above.
It’s always a good idea to consult with your tax professional for answers to your specific tax questions.
* A qualified distribution is generally a distribution that is made five years after the first day of the taxable year for which you first made designated Roth contributions to the plan and is either:
- made on or after the date you attain age 59½
- made after your death, or
- attributable to your being disabled.
** Distributions made from the 401(a) plan or from funds rolled into the 457 plan from another qualified plan or IRA may be subject to a 10% penalty if made prior to 59½ unless an exception applies.