Owner of a small business (LLC or S-Corp), mixing personal and business finances, SEP-IRA or Solo 401k, variable income.
A-04 is the household where the personal and business balance sheets are not yet structurally separated: S-Corp reasonable-comp determination, SEP-IRA or Solo 401(k) as the only retirement vehicle, QBI on Schedule E, and a self-employed health-insurance deduction that has to clear the §162(l) eligibility tests every year.
A-04 captures the small-business owner whose business has stabilised past the gig-worker stage but has not yet become a multi-employee operation worth the cost of dedicated CFO-style services. The defining technical surface is the LLC-or-S-Corp election with its consequences: reasonable-compensation determination for S-Corp shareholder-employees (the IRS audit-bait around setting W-2 wages too low to maximise the QBI deduction), §199A QBI deduction with its specified-service-trade-or-business (SSTB) carve-outs and W-2-wages-and-UBIA limits, the §162(l) self-employed health-insurance deduction (which requires the policy to be in the business name or in the shareholder's name with the business reimbursing), and SEP-IRA versus Solo 401(k) versus defined-benefit plan choice at variable annual net income. Schedule K-1 flow-through for the S-Corp owner appears alongside personal W-2 wages on the 1040, producing the canonical 'two income types on the same return' tax-software testing surface.
Cash-flow shape is materially better than F-02 (gig starter): median gross of $145,338 with the right-skew of the distribution extending into $200k territory. 16 of 25 households are homeowners with mortgages, 16 carry student loans (often professional-school debt for medical, legal, or accounting practice owners), and 13 carry auto loans (frequently the business vehicle that the household has not yet separated from personal use). Median liquid net worth of $211,622 reflects retained business cash that has not been distributed, which is why the personal-versus-business balance-sheet separation is the load-bearing analytical question.
A-04 is distinct from neighbouring archetypes because the household and the business are not yet structurally separated. F-02 (Gig Economy Starter) is the pre-LLC stage where Schedule C is the only return form. SB-01 (LLC / S-Corp Owner — Pass-Through) is the mature multi-year-stable version of A-04, and SB-02 (Solo Practitioner — Professional Services) is the version where the business is service-provision under the owner's professional license rather than a separable enterprise. P-02 (Established Business Owner) is what A-04 becomes if the business reaches $1M–$5M revenue with succession-planning relevance. A-04 is the early-mid stage of that arc.
Aggregated across the 25 A-04 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.
Andrew is a single A-04 household at the corpus median income — a technology-services owner-operator in Tampa whose $235k net worth against $180k of liabilities shows the early-stage business owner's typical balance-sheet position: meaningful but not yet substantial, with debt concentrated in a recent mortgage plus business-related credit lines. The diagnostic friction is the $2.6M retirement target sitting against current liquid assets of $66k, with retirement-contribution capacity dependent on year-to-year business net income variability. On track for debt payoff but behind on retirement and emergency fund — exactly the SEP-versus-Solo-401(k)-versus-defined-benefit decision space where higher contribution capacity is potentially unlocked but requires the household to commit to a higher savings rate at variable income.
Every A-04 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.
Three buyer profiles draw on A-04 most heavily. Small-business payroll-and-banking platforms, plus the small-business tax-prep and bookkeeping tier, use the corpus for S-Corp reasonable-compensation, 1120-S preparation, K-1 issuance, and the §162(l) self-employed-health-insurance flow. Embedded-finance platforms serving owner-operators (small-business banking platforms with bookkeeping-attached products) use A-04 for business-and-personal-account separation UX, set-aside-for-taxes features sized to W-2-plus-distribution income, and the unified-balance-sheet view that mixes business and personal balances. Retirement-plan platforms specialising in owner-only plans use the corpus for SEP-vs-Solo-vs-DB decision UX and the contribution-limit calculation at variable annual net income.
A-04 is the early-stage owner who has elected LLC or S-Corp but has not yet built scale. The pre-election sole-proprietor / Schedule-C-only worker is F-02 (Gig Economy Starter); reach for F-02 when no formal structure exists yet. The multi-year-stable owner with the same household structure but matured operations and consistent annual income belongs in SB-01 (LLC / S-Corp Owner — Pass-Through). The solo professional providing services under a personal license (law, medicine, accounting, design) where the business is inseparable from the licensee belongs in SB-02 (Solo Practitioner — Professional Services). The multi-member partnership with K-1 income across two or more owners belongs in SB-03 (Partnership / Multi-Member Business). Households at the same business-ownership stage but with the business approaching $1M–$5M revenue with succession-planning weight belong in P-02 (Established Business Owner). Finally, A-04 does not stress acquisition-financing, SBA-7(a)-loan, or business-credit-line testing as primary features.
Income and ownership-structure distributions during v3 synthesis referenced Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) self-employed household tabulations and IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) S-Corp returns by gross-receipts band. The S-Corp-election-versus-Schedule-C split was anchored to the empirical pattern where election typically occurs after 2–3 years of profitable single-member-LLC operation. Geographic concentration in FL, CA, and MA reflects the empirical distribution of professional and trade-business ownership rather than a uniform-state assumption. Industry tags in the corpus (Technology, Healthcare, Professional Services) reflect the typical industries where S-Corp election is common in this age band. Per CLAUDE.md §9 the v3 corpus is frozen; these notes describe priors applied at synthesis rather than a reproducible regeneration path.
F-02 is the pre-election sole-proprietor / 1099 stage with no business structure. A-04 has elected LLC or S-Corp and is using the §199A QBI deduction and a SEP-IRA in active operation.
SB-01 is the mature, multi-year-stable LLC/S-Corp owner with consistent annual net income and established planning rhythms. A-04 is the earlier, more-variable stage of that arc.
SB-02 is the solo professional services practitioner (attorney, physician, designer, consultant) whose business is inseparable from the licensee. A-04 includes ownership of separable small businesses (agency, trade business, technology-services firm).
P-02 is the established business owner with $1M–$5M revenue, succession-planning weight, buy-sell agreement, and a defined-benefit plan in active use. A-04 is the pre-scale precursor.
A-04 — Small Business Owner (Early Stage) models the LLC-or-S-Corp owner whose business has stabilised past the gig-worker stage but is not yet at multi-employee scale. Combined gross of $100k–$200k, SEP-IRA or Solo 401(k) as the only retirement vehicle, §199A QBI deduction in active use, and the §162(l) self-employed health-insurance deduction every year.
Yes. The S-Corp-elected subset of the corpus produces the canonical 'too low triggers IRS scrutiny; too high gives up QBI optimisation' tradeoff. The W-2-wages-and-UBIA limit interaction with the §199A deduction at incomes above the MFJ phase-in threshold is the load-bearing testing surface.
F-02 has no business structure — Schedule C only, no QBI deduction in meaningful use, no SEP/Solo balance, and no §162(l) deduction. A-04 has elected LLC or S-Corp, has established retirement plans, and is using the QBI deduction. A-04 is what F-02 typically becomes after 2–3 years of profitable operation.
SEP-IRA at lower contribution levels, Solo 401(k) where the owner is approaching the §415(c) overall limit, and defined-benefit plan at the upper income end where contribution capacity over $70k matters. The corpus is calibrated to exercise the SEP-vs-Solo-vs-DB decision UX, including the catch-up-contribution interaction at age 50.
No — and that is the point. The household financial signature reflects the combined personal-plus-business position, exercising the PFM and net-worth-tracking UX that has to handle owners who have not yet fully separated the two. Households with fully separated structures belong in SB-01.
No. The shipped v3 A-04 corpus is frozen as of the corpus drift confirmation on 2026-05-09. Sampler improvements land in a future v4 release; the current 25 households are not reproducible from current code.
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