I verbally accepted the offer with one condition – they have to have some kind of tax-deferred retirement account available by the end of the year. I ran some numbers, and if we can’t sock away my contribution tax-deferred, we’ll owe about $6000 more in taxes per year (and without being able to lower my taxable income, I can’t deduct any amount contributed to an IRA because Dad has a 403(b)). Those extra taxes combined with the piss poor salary offer and benefits basically causes me to lose almost 30k/year in compensation – from what I’m making now – which is well below what I should be making.
I haven’t signed any paperwork, so I have no idea if I technically have a job on Monday. I’m at home today (taking as much of my personal leave as I can before it disappears – except I’ve pretty much spent all day dealing with this crap…)
I will however be actively looking for another position which pays better/has better benefits. Won’t hurt to have *some* money coming in while I look…. And if your company is looking for a CISO or CISO type position, let me know via e-mail (mom at mydomain) 🙂
Update 30-May 5:30pm: my boss is making up the PTO issue – we’ll be paid out what PTO we had accrued – I had 5 weeks, so I’m getting a bit more than a month’s extra money out of it – a nice start to our long term emergency fund.
I hate it when companies try and deny/delay 401K access and act like it’s no big deal. I had what could have been a decent offer from another company but without 401K or match in year 1, and a crappy match thereafter (and they didn’t mention that until I specifically asked), I would have been out ~$10K in the first year until I became 401K eligible. Not to mention they wouldn’t tell me what the benefits were for an apples-to-apples comparison without signing a binding agreement. If you want to hire someone smart, who makes information based decisions, be prepared to give them the information they need and not mess around.
They were surprised that it was a sticking point for me. Hello – it shelters us from about 6k in taxes!! Of course it’s a big deal!
Agreed with Mrs. Pop on the delayed 401k nonsense. Like you noted, losing out on that tax-deferral is a huge deal.
I *think* we will be able to take advantage of the traditional IRA deduction (our AGI should be below 181k this year) – but that’s only 5500 that’s sheltered instead of 17500…
Glad that they figured out the PTO thing…that’s pretty huge! Hopefully they’ll fix that 401k stuff out. That’s a lot of tax deferment to miss out on.