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Retirement challenges for the self-employed on Money Monday

Posted at 7:09 PM, Feb 20, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-20 21:14:07-05

SALT LAKE CITY -- Gary Gygi, president of Gygi Capital Management, argued that retirement for the self-employed was possible on Money Monday. 

Gygi said retirement needs come down to asset allocation.

Too often people are overly conservative with their money, which means when a person gets to the point of retiring there isn't enough money to retire on, according to Gygi.

"There are challenges that retirees today that they probably didn't face a decade ago because they retired at a point when the market was at all time highs and a different type of economic environment, so it's serious," Gygi said. "If you work for a company and you're not self-employed, a lot of times they have a 401K. It's structured: you go to work, you enroll and you participate in the 401K. sometimes the company participates as well, but if you're self-employed you are the company."

Someone self-employed, Gygi said, will have set up the 401K on their own.

"There are individual 401K's that someone could set up, so it's deducted pretax and all you have to do is contribute," Gygi said.

Self-employed individuals, Gygi said, will have the same types of tax deductions and tax breaks as they would in a company's 401K.

"However, when you look at tax breaks that could come to a corporation with you being the individual you need talk with your CPA," Gygi said. "They need to talk with their CPA and have a really good discussion with them in terms of what's allowable and what's not allowable."

Gygi said small businesses, including the self-employed, is the driver of growth in America.

"Small businesses make up a good portion of our economy, and there is a number of people that had worked for say a fortune 500 company, like myself, and they went in and started their own company, their own firm because they like the flexibility that goes along with that."