For high-earning performers and creators with a one-participant 401(k)

Two plans under the line apiece. Over it together.

Highwater keeps each solo 401(k)’s year-end assets, adds every plan together against the $250,000 line, and puts every Form 5500-EZ owed on a date — July 31, or October 15 with a 5558 — including the final return a closed plan always owes. The late-penalty exposure is shown in dollars.

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Opens in this browser with an invented performer already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Highwater with its example records in it

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The problem

The money grows quietly. The penalty does not.

The IRS says a one-participant 401(k) generally must file Form 5500-EZ for any year it ends with $250,000 or more in assets. It is easy to miss: the balance grows unnoticed, two plans can cross the line together, and a closed plan still owes a return for its last year. A late return can cost $250 a day.

$250,000

in assets at year end, and a one-participant 401(k) generally files Form 5500-EZ.

IRS →

July 31

after a calendar plan year, or October 15 with Form 5558.

$250 a day

for a late return, up to $150,000.

Will not let a return slip past the line unnoticed.

Every plan is counted together against $250,000, and every year over it owes a return per plan. A plan’s final year always files. A plan cannot end before it started. Every return not filed by its date is a stop on the file, with the penalty exposure and a pointer to the IRS Penalty Relief Program.

How it works

Plans, year end, the file

List each plan

Where it is held, when it started and ended, and whether the plan year matches an extended tax return.

Enter each year end

Each plan’s assets at December 31; the total of all plans; which owe a return and when each was filed.

Read the file

Every finding with its penalty exposure, and every year’s total and returns.

What it will never do

It watches the line. It files nothing.

Highwater tells you which returns are owed. You file them with the IRS.

No filing.Nothing goes to the IRS.

No brokerage link.You type the year-end balances from the statements.

It is not an accountant.Not tax advice.

It never touches a payment.The licence is for software.

Pricing

Priced per year

Less than the penalty on one late day.

Most performers

One person

$29/year

Every solo plan one person holds.

All plans counted together
Every return dated
Penalty exposure shown

Couple

$45/year

Two people, each with plans.

Everything in One person
A file per person
Export for your accountant

Yearly licence. Your bank statement says Highwater Software. Refunded in full on request within 30 days. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

Why add the plans together?

Because the $250,000 line counts all of a person’s one-participant plans. Two under the line can be over it together.

We closed a plan.

Its final year always files a 5500-EZ, whatever its balance. Highwater keeps that date.

What if we already missed one?

Highwater shows the exposure and points to the IRS Penalty Relief Program.

Is this tax advice?

No. It is the line you wish you had watched.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before July 31

The invented performer’s two plans were over the line together in 2024 with one return never filed, the old plan’s final return is past its extended date, and this year is already over $250,000.

Open the demo See pricing