Abstract The internal Revenue Code imposes complex, interrelated limitations on contributions to certain retirement and deferred compensation plans described in Sections 403(b), 401 (k), and 457. As a result, an employee may find it extremely difficult to determine the maximum allowable contribution to these plans, especially when he or she participates in more than one type of plan. This article demonstrates that linear programming provides an ideal methodology for maximizing contributions to various combinations of plans and applies the general linear programming model to specific numerical examples.
Carruth et al. (Mon,) studied this question.