CompDesigner Specification

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CompDesigner

The Future of Compensation Design.

CompDesigner is an open-source specification for an AI-driven compensation design and optimization system that helps employers design lawful compensation packages around tax efficiency, employee economic value, benefits, wealth building, compliance, and organizational objectives.

The system treats compensation as an optimization problem rather than a fixed salary calculation. It evaluates salary, bonuses, benefits, reimbursements, retirement and wealth programs, equity, incentives, timing, jurisdiction, eligibility, employee preferences, employer costs, and applicable tax rules to identify compensation structures that maximize lawful economic value.

Lawful tax minimization is a primary optimization objective. The system must never achieve tax savings through concealment, mischaracterization, fabricated eligibility, sham transactions, manipulated facts, unsupported tax positions, or other unlawful methods.

Core Objectives

Minimize lawful combined federal, state, and local tax liability.
Maximize employee after-tax economic value.
Maximize lawful employee benefit value.
Improve employee liquidity and long-term wealth where desired.
Minimize employer total compensation cost where desired.
Minimize administrative and compliance burden.
Minimize legal and tax uncertainty.
Minimize unnecessary fiduciary exposure.
Preserve employee choice and portability where legally and operationally feasible.
Maintain accurate compensation and employee classification.
Maintain transparent legal and tax traceability.
Maintain reproducible calculations.
Continuously verify applicable tax and compensation rules.
Identify opportunities to shift compensation from less efficient forms to more efficient lawful forms.
Distinguish permanent tax savings from tax deferral.
Identify future tax liabilities created by present compensation decisions.
Balance employee value, employer cost, tax efficiency, liquidity, compliance, and administrative complexity.

System Principles

Compensation optimization must operate within applicable law.
Tax minimization must never override legal compliance.
Every material recommendation must be explainable.
Every material tax conclusion must identify its supporting authority.
Primary legal and governmental authorities should be prioritized over secondary commentary.
Jurisdiction-specific rules should be used whenever the applicable jurisdiction can be determined.
The system must distinguish established law from interpretation, uncertainty, and unresolved questions.
The system must not represent a tax position as certain when the applicable authority is ambiguous or contested.
Employee and employer interests must be separately modeled.
Compensation recommendations must account for both employee and employer tax consequences.
Recommendations must account for federal, state, and local effects where applicable.
Compensation structures must be evaluated for eligibility, nondiscrimination, reporting, withholding, documentation, and administrative requirements.
Recommendations must remain traceable to the facts and assumptions on which they depend.
Changes in law, employee circumstances, employer circumstances, or jurisdiction must trigger reevaluation where material.
The system must preserve historical recommendations rather than silently replacing them.
The system must provide alternatives when the preferred structure is unavailable, unlawful, impractical, or excessively burdensome.
Human review must remain available for consequential or uncertain recommendations.

Core Compensation Optimization

The Core Compensation Optimization module defines and evaluates the complete economic compensation package offered to an employee.

Features include:

Employer and employee compensation profiles.
Total compensation analysis.
Base salary analysis.
Hourly compensation where applicable.
Variable compensation.
Performance bonuses.
Project completion incentives.
Timely completion incentives.
Early delivery incentives.
Exceptional contribution incentives.
Productivity incentives.
Quality incentives.
Customer satisfaction incentives.
Innovation incentives.
Referral incentives.
Retention incentives.
Commissions.
Team-performance compensation.
Profit sharing.
Gain sharing.
Employer retirement contributions.
Health benefits.
Educational assistance.
Student-loan educational assistance where permitted.
Professional certification assistance.
Continuing education assistance.
Accountable-plan reimbursements.
Business expense reimbursement.
Travel reimbursement.
Qualified transportation benefits where applicable.
Dependent care benefits.
Achievement awards where applicable.
Employer-provided equipment and technology.
Working-condition fringe benefits.
Professional memberships.
Professional licensing assistance.
Deferred compensation where permitted.
Equity compensation where permitted.
Stock options where permitted.
Relocation compensation where permitted.
Customized benefit structures.
Compensation timing optimization.
Cash versus benefit comparisons.
Taxable versus nontaxable compensation comparisons.
Immediate compensation versus deferred compensation comparisons.
Employee economic value comparisons.
Employer cost comparisons.
Administrative cost comparisons.
Compliance burden comparisons.
Compensation package optimization across multiple compensation categories.

Federal Tax Optimization

The Federal Tax Optimization module evaluates federal income, payroll, employment, benefit, and compensation tax consequences.

Features include:

Federal income tax analysis.
Federal payroll tax analysis.
Social Security tax analysis.
Medicare tax analysis.
Additional Medicare Tax analysis where applicable.
Federal unemployment tax analysis where applicable.
Employee payroll tax analysis.
Employer payroll tax analysis.
Supplemental wage analysis.
Bonus taxation analysis.
Commission taxation analysis.
Fringe benefit taxation analysis.
Taxable compensation identification.
Nontaxable compensation identification.
Tax exclusions.
Tax deductions.
Tax credits.
Tax deferral opportunities.
Tax bracket analysis.
Marginal tax rate analysis.
Effective tax rate analysis.
Taxable income optimization.
Contribution limits.
Compensation limits.
Phaseouts.
Thresholds.
Applicable exclusions.
Applicable deductions.
Applicable credits.
Federal withholding implications.
Federal reporting implications.
Tax-year-specific rules.
Effective-date tracking.
Expiration-date tracking.
Superseded-rule detection.
Federal tax forecasting.
Federal tax law change detection.
Employee and employer federal tax comparisons.

State and Local Jurisdiction Optimization

The State and Local Jurisdiction Optimization module evaluates compensation according to the jurisdictions applicable to the employer and employee.

Features include:

State residency analysis.
Domicile analysis.
Nonresident analysis.
Part-year resident analysis.
Work-location analysis.
Employer jurisdiction analysis.
Remote-work analysis.
Multi-state compensation analysis.
Multi-city compensation analysis.
State income tax analysis.
State wage tax analysis.
State payroll tax analysis.
State unemployment tax analysis.
State disability tax analysis.
State paid-leave tax analysis.
Local income tax analysis.
Local wage tax analysis.
Local payroll tax analysis.
Local employer tax analysis.
Withholding analysis.
Filing requirements.
Reciprocity analysis.
Wage sourcing.
Compensation sourcing.
Benefit sourcing.
State and local deductions.
State and local exclusions.
State and local credits.
State and local contribution limits.
Jurisdiction-specific benefit treatment.
Jurisdiction-specific retirement treatment.
Jurisdiction-specific equity treatment.
Jurisdiction-specific reimbursement treatment.
Multi-jurisdiction comparisons.
Jurisdiction-change analysis.
Tax forecasting by jurisdiction.
Effective-date tracking.
Expiration-date tracking.
Direct references to applicable state, county, municipal, and other governmental authorities.
Prevention of generic jurisdiction estimates when applicable jurisdiction-specific law can be identified.

Tax Law and Legal Authority

The Tax Law and Legal Authority module maintains the legal foundation used by the system to evaluate compensation structures.

Features include:

Internal Revenue Code analysis.
Treasury Regulation analysis.
Federal statutes and regulations.
State statutes and regulations.
Local statutes and regulations.
IRS guidance.
State and local tax authority guidance.
Revenue rulings.
Revenue procedures.
Notices.
Announcements.
Publications.
Official instructions.
Court decisions.
Primary-authority prioritization.
Secondary-authority identification.
Conflicting-authority detection.
Tax-year tracking.
Effective-date tracking.
Expiration-date tracking.
Superseded-rule tracking.
Historical rule preservation.
Authority versioning.
Direct source links.
Legal citations.
Authority verification.
Source confidence.
Legal uncertainty identification.
Professional-review triggers.

The system should provide user-facing explanations such as:

Show Me the Law.
Why Is This Legal?
What Makes This Compensation Taxable?
What Makes This Compensation Nontaxable?
What Could Make This Structure Illegal?
What Could Make This Benefit Taxable?
What Happens If the Tax Authority Disagrees?
What Authority Supports This Recommendation?
When Does This Rule Become Effective?
When Does This Rule Expire?

Tax Calculation and Savings Engine

The Tax Calculation and Savings Engine calculates the economic effect of compensation alternatives.

Features include:

Current compensation calculations.
Proposed compensation calculations.
Federal tax calculations.
State tax calculations.
Local tax calculations.
Employee payroll tax calculations.
Employer payroll tax calculations.
Taxable compensation calculations.
Nontaxable compensation calculations.
Benefit valuation.
Employee economic value calculations.
Employer total cost calculations.
Tax savings calculations.
Additional liability calculations.
Marginal tax calculations.
Effective tax calculations.
Tax deferral calculations.
Tax exclusion calculations.
Deduction calculations.
Credit calculations.
Permanent tax reduction analysis.
Future tax liability analysis.
Lifetime tax impact analysis.
Multi-year forecasting.
Scenario comparison.
Reproducible calculations.
Calculation assumptions.
Calculation confidence.

Core calculations should include:

Total Lawful Tax Liability = Federal Tax Liability + State Tax Liability + Local Tax Liability + Applicable Payroll and Employment Taxes.
Net Employee Economic Value = Compensation + Tax-Advantaged Benefits + Other Economic Benefits – Employee Tax Liability – Employee Costs.
Employer Total Cost = Compensation + Employer Taxes + Benefits + Administrative Costs + Compliance Costs.

Employee Personal Optimization

The Employee Personal Optimization module evaluates compensation according to the employee’s individual circumstances and objectives.

Features include:

Individual employee tax profile.
Employee benefit profile.
Employee jurisdiction profile.
Employee compensation profile.
Employee preferences.
Employee liquidity preferences.
Employee wealth-building preferences.
Employee tax-optimization preferences.
Employee benefit preferences.
Employee risk preferences where applicable.
After-tax compensation analysis.
Total economic value analysis.
Tax bracket analysis.
Phaseout analysis.
Contribution-limit analysis.
Benefit utilization analysis.
Retirement accumulation analysis.
Wealth accumulation analysis.
Liquidity analysis.
Compensation timing analysis.
Taxable versus nontaxable value analysis.
Immediate versus long-term value analysis.
Future tax liability analysis.
Personal scenario modeling.
Personal forecasting.
Personal stress testing.

Employee Choice Engine

The Employee Choice Engine allows employees to select among employer-approved compensation and benefit alternatives.

Features include:

Employer-defined compensation budgets.
Employer-defined benefit budgets.
Employee elections.
Employee preferences.
Employee objectives.
Package comparisons.
Scenario comparisons.
Immediate cash comparisons.
After-tax value comparisons.
Long-term wealth comparisons.
Liquidity comparisons.
Tax-minimization comparisons.
Eligibility validation.
Election deadlines.
Election history.
Permitted election changes.
Automatic recalculation after elections.
Employee acknowledgment.
Employee consent where required.
Employer approval where required.
Clear presentation of tradeoffs.
Explanation of consequences before election.

Benefits Eligibility Engine

The Benefits Eligibility Engine determines whether employees qualify for compensation-related benefits and identifies restrictions affecting their use.

Features include:

Employee classification.
Employment status.
Full-time and part-time status.
Hours requirements.
Service requirements.
Waiting periods.
Compensation requirements.
Plan requirements.
Benefit-specific eligibility.
Statutory eligibility.
Age requirements.
Income limits.
Contribution limits.
Phaseouts.
Participation requirements.
Nondiscrimination requirements.
Highly compensated employee analysis.
Key employee analysis.
Geographic eligibility.
State and local eligibility.
Documentation requirements.
Election requirements.
Deadline requirements.
Eligibility expiration.
Rule-change detection.
Explanation of qualification.
Explanation of ineligibility.
Tax consequences of eligibility decisions.

Employee Wealth and Investment Optimization

The Employee Wealth and Investment Optimization module evaluates employer-sponsored programs intended to improve employee wealth accumulation, liquidity, and after-tax economic value.

Features include:

Employer-sponsored wealth programs.
Liquid wealth programs.
Principal-preservation-oriented programs.
Insured deposit programs.
Bank sweep structures.
Deposit institution comparisons.
FDIC insurance analysis where applicable.
NCUA insurance analysis where applicable.
Deposit concentration analysis.
Interest-rate comparison.
Yield comparison.
Promotional-rate analysis.
Sustained-rate analysis.
Liquidity analysis.
Withdrawal restrictions.
Fees.
Minimum balances.
Employee ownership.
Employee portability.
Vesting.
Termination consequences.
Employer contributions.
Employee contributions.
Qualified retirement plan comparisons.
IRA comparisons.
Taxable savings comparisons.
Cash-management comparisons.
Wealth accumulation projections.
Administrative burden analysis.
Compliance cost analysis.

The system must distinguish principal-preservation-oriented programs from guaranteed or risk-free claims and must not represent an investment or deposit arrangement as risk-free unless the applicable legal and contractual protections actually support that characterization.

The system must evaluate whether a proposed employer-sponsored wealth program could implicate:

ERISA.
Employee benefit plan requirements.
Retirement plan qualification requirements.
Fiduciary obligations.
Securities laws.
Investment adviser requirements.
Banking and deposit rules.
Deposit insurance requirements.
Payroll taxation.
Employee classification.
Nondiscrimination requirements.
State requirements.
Reporting requirements.
Disclosure requirements.

Compensation Equity Analyzer

The Compensation Equity Analyzer evaluates whether compensation and benefit structures distribute economic value appropriately across employee populations.

Features include:

Gross compensation comparison.
Net compensation comparison.
After-tax compensation comparison.
Benefit value comparison.
Employer cost comparison.
Employee tax liability comparison.
State and local tax comparison.
Benefit access comparison.
Eligibility comparison.
Vesting comparison.
Liquidity comparison.
Employee utilization analysis.
Employee classification analysis.
Geographic analysis.
Consistency analysis.
Nondiscrimination analysis.
Legitimate compensation-difference analysis.
Potential compliance concern identification.
Tax-advantaged benefit distribution analysis.
Employee economic value analysis.
Employer economic value analysis.
Professional-review triggers where legal conclusions require qualified review.

The system must not infer unlawful discrimination solely from a compensation difference. It should identify relevant facts, applicable rules, legitimate business explanations, and areas requiring professional review.

Compensation and Benefit Program Designer

The Compensation and Benefit Program Designer creates complete employer compensation programs based on organizational objectives and legal constraints.

Features include:

Compensation program creation.
Benefit program creation.
Employee-class design.
Eligibility design.
Compensation budgets.
Benefit budgets.
Employer contribution design.
Employee contribution design.
Vesting design.
Election design.
Compensation timing.
Benefit timing.
Tax optimization.
Employee-value optimization.
Employer-cost optimization.
Administrative-cost analysis.
Compliance-cost analysis.
Documentation requirements.
Reporting requirements.
Program comparison.
Program scenario testing.
Program lifecycle management.
Program revision.
Program versioning.

AI Compensation Designer

The AI Compensation Designer generates and evaluates compensation packages based on defined objectives, constraints, facts, and applicable law.

Features include:

AI-generated compensation packages.
Candidate package generation.
Multi-objective optimization.
Constraint-based optimization.
Tax-minimization ranking.
Employee-value ranking.
Employer-cost ranking.
Liquidity ranking.
Administrative-burden ranking.
Legal and compliance risk ranking.
Benefit-value ranking.
Multi-year optimization.
Employee-specific optimization.
Employer-wide optimization.
Jurisdiction-specific optimization.
Multi-jurisdiction optimization.
Alternative package generation.
Package rejection when requirements cannot be satisfied.
Explanation of package selection.
Explanation of rejected alternatives.
Identification of assumptions.
Identification of uncertainties.
Identification of required documentation.
Identification of required approvals.
Identification of professional-review requirements.

The AI must not fabricate tax rules, legal authorities, eligibility requirements, employee facts, compensation records, or savings estimates.

Tax Liability Stress Testing

The Tax Liability Stress Testing module evaluates whether compensation recommendations remain viable under changed circumstances.

Features include:

Higher-income scenarios.
Lower-income scenarios.
Tax-rate changes.
Tax-bracket changes.
Tax-law changes.
Tax-rule expiration.
Employee relocation.
Employer relocation.
State changes.
City changes.
Multi-state scenarios.
Multi-city scenarios.
Termination.
Job change.
Benefit eligibility loss.
Contribution-limit changes.
Taxable-event scenarios.
Employer-program termination.
Early distribution scenarios.
Vesting changes.
Compensation timing changes.
Interest-rate changes.
Investment-return scenarios where applicable.
Worst-case scenarios.
Expected-case scenarios.
Best-case scenarios.
Lost tax savings.
Added tax liability.
Added employee cost.
Added employer cost.
Liquidity impact.
Long-term wealth impact.

Recommendation Versioning

The Recommendation Versioning module preserves every material compensation recommendation and its supporting context.

Features include:

Recommendation identifiers.
Version numbers.
Creation dates.
Modification dates.
Tax year.
Applicable jurisdictions.
Employee facts.
Employer facts.
Assumptions.
Legal authorities.
Tax rules.
Source links.
Effective dates.
Expiration dates.
Calculations.
Tax savings.
Additional liabilities.
Employee economic value.
Employer cost.
Compliance analysis.
Risk analysis.
Professional-review status.
Approval status.
Recommendation alternatives.
Version comparison.
Superseded recommendations.
Recalculation after material changes.
Automatic reevaluation after applicable law changes.
Preservation of historical recommendations.
Prevention of silent changes.

AI Legal Peer Review

The AI Legal Peer Review module independently evaluates recommendations before they are presented as eligible for implementation.

Features include:

Independent recommendation review.
Tax-rule verification.
Legal-authority verification.
Source verification.
Eligibility verification.
Contribution-limit verification.
Phaseout verification.
Payroll-tax verification.
Federal compliance verification.
State compliance verification.
Local compliance verification.
Calculation verification.
Assumption verification.
Savings verification.
Deferral-versus-permanent-savings verification.
Documentation verification.
Reporting verification.
Nondiscrimination verification.
Risk verification.
Unsupported-authority detection.
Contradictory-authority detection.
Outdated-authority detection.
Unresolved-issue detection.
Recommendation rejection.
Confidence scoring.
Professional escalation.

Peer review must be independent from the recommendation-generation process to reduce the risk that the system simply confirms its own conclusions.

Audit Trail

The Audit Trail module preserves a complete history of compensation decisions and their supporting evidence.

Features include:

Original inputs.
Input changes.
Employee decisions.
Employer decisions.
Employee elections.
AI recommendations.
Alternative recommendations.
Rejected recommendations.
Legal authorities.
Tax rules.
Calculations.
Assumptions.
Tax savings.
Additional liabilities.
Employee economic value.
Employer cost.
Peer reviews.
Compliance reviews.
Risk assessments.
Professional reviews.
Approvals.
Rejections.
Implementation decisions.
Recommendation versions.
Law changes.
Recalculations.
Exceptions.
Overrides.
Override reasons.
Source verification.
Reproducible calculations.
Historical legal context.

Every material recommendation should be traceable through:

Fact.
Rule.
Authority.
Eligibility.
Calculation.
Tax consequence.
Compliance requirement.
Risk.
Alternative.
Final recommendation.
Approval or rejection.

Legal Compliance Gate

The Legal Compliance Gate prevents recommendations from being presented as implementation-ready when required legal, tax, or compliance conditions have not been satisfied.

Features include:

Compensation classification review.
Employee classification review.
Federal tax review.
State tax review.
Local tax review.
Payroll review.
Benefit compliance review.
ERISA review where applicable.
Securities review where applicable.
Fiduciary review where applicable.
Nondiscrimination review.
Documentation review.
Reporting review.
Filing review.
Withholding review.
Eligibility review.
Risk classification.
Professional-review requirements.

Compliance statuses should include:

Green.
Yellow.
Orange.
Red.
Blocked.

A recommendation marked Red or Blocked must not be presented as ready for implementation without the required resolution or professional review.

Tax Savings Ledger

The Tax Savings Ledger records the financial impact of each compensation optimization.

Features include:

Current compensation.
Proposed compensation.
Current taxable income.
Proposed taxable income.
Federal tax liability.
State tax liability.
Local tax liability.
Employee payroll taxes.
Employer payroll taxes.
Benefit value.
Employee economic value.
Employer total cost.
Tax savings.
Additional tax liability.
Tax deferral.
Tax exclusion.
Deduction.
Credit.
Permanent tax reduction.
Future tax liability.
Net employee benefit.
Employer savings.
Confidence.
Supporting authority.
Calculation date.
Tax year.
Jurisdiction.

The ledger must clearly distinguish:

Actual tax reduction.
Tax deferral.
Tax shifting between periods.
Tax shifting between employee and employer.
Tax shifting between jurisdictions.
Economic benefit that is not itself a tax saving.

Legal Explanation and Transparency

The Legal Explanation and Transparency module makes compensation recommendations understandable and reviewable.

Features include:

Employer-facing explanations.
Employee-facing explanations.
Plain-language explanations.
Technical explanations.
Tax calculation explanations.
Jurisdiction explanations.
Eligibility explanations.
Compliance explanations.
Risk explanations.
Assumption disclosures.
Uncertainty disclosures.
Source disclosures.
Effective-date disclosures.
Last-verified dates.
Primary-authority identification.
Secondary-authority identification.
Calculation walkthroughs.
Requirement walkthroughs.
Risk walkthroughs.
Future-tax-liability walkthroughs.

The system should provide user-facing actions including:

Show Me the Law.
Show Me the Calculation.
Show Me the Assumptions.
Show Me the Requirements.
Show Me the Risks.
Show Me the Future Tax Liability.
Show Me the Alternative.
Show Me Why This Option Was Rejected.
Show Me What Changed.

Tax Law Change Detection

The Tax Law Change Detection module continuously evaluates whether changes in applicable law affect existing compensation recommendations.

Features include:

Federal law monitoring.
State law monitoring.
Local law monitoring.
Regulation monitoring.
Tax authority guidance monitoring.
Court decision monitoring.
Effective-date detection.
Expiration-date detection.
Superseded-rule detection.
Affected-recommendation identification.
Affected-employee identification.
Affected-employer identification.
Tax recalculation.
Compliance recalculation.
Recommendation reevaluation.
Change notifications.
Historical rule preservation.

Employer and Employee Reporting

The Employer and Employee Reporting module provides transparent reporting of compensation recommendations and their economic consequences.

Features include:

Compensation reports.
Tax savings reports.
Tax liability reports.
State tax reports.
Local tax reports.
Employee economic value reports.
Employer cost reports.
Benefit reports.
Eligibility reports.
Equity reports.
Stress-test reports.
Legal-authority reports.
Compliance reports.
Audit reports.
Recommendation comparison reports.
Version-change reports.
Tax-law-change reports.
Employee election reports.
Employer program reports.
Multi-year compensation reports.
Individual employee reports.
Employee population reports.

Reports should distinguish clearly between:

Projected values.
Actual values.
Estimated values.
Verified values.
Tax savings.
Tax deferral.
Additional liability.
Uncertainty.
Professional-review status.

Employer Optimization

The Employer Optimization module evaluates compensation from the employer’s economic and operational perspective while preserving employee value.

Features include:

Employer compensation budgets.
Employer total cost.
Employer payroll taxes.
Employer benefit costs.
Employer administrative costs.
Employer compliance costs.
Employer fiduciary exposure.
Employee retention value.
Employee recruitment value.
Productivity incentives.
Performance incentives.
Benefit utilization.
Compensation competitiveness.
Compensation consistency.
Workforce segmentation.
Employee-class optimization.
Multi-year employer cost projections.
Cost-versus-value comparisons.
Tax-efficient employer contribution analysis.
Administrative simplification analysis.

Compensation Scenario Engine

The Compensation Scenario Engine allows multiple compensation strategies to be modeled simultaneously.

Features include:

Current package baseline.
Proposed package.
Multiple alternative packages.
Employee-specific scenarios.
Employer-wide scenarios.
Multi-year scenarios.
Jurisdiction scenarios.
Tax-rate scenarios.
Benefit scenarios.
Liquidity scenarios.
Retirement scenarios.
Wealth-building scenarios.
Employer-cost scenarios.
Compliance-risk scenarios.
Administrative-burden scenarios.
Side-by-side comparisons.
Ranking.
Sensitivity analysis.
Scenario cloning.
Scenario versioning.

Compensation Optimization Guardrails

The Compensation Optimization Guardrails module establishes boundaries that the optimization engine cannot cross.

Features include:

Lawful-only optimization.
Accurate-fact requirements.
Accurate classification requirements.
Eligibility verification.
Authority verification.
No fabricated documentation.
No fabricated eligibility.
No concealment of taxable compensation.
No mischaracterization of wages.
No sham transactions.
No artificial transaction structuring solely to disguise compensation.
No unsupported tax positions presented as established law.
No false certainty.
No manipulation of employee facts.
No manipulation of employer facts.
No omission of material tax consequences.
No omission of material compliance requirements.
Mandatory escalation for material uncertainty.
Mandatory review for blocked structures.
Preservation of auditability.

Human Review and Decision Controls

The Human Review and Decision Controls module preserves human oversight over consequential compensation decisions.

Features include:

Human approval workflows.
Employer approval.
Employee acknowledgment.
Employee consent where required.
Professional tax review.
Professional legal review.
Fiduciary review where applicable.
Compliance review.
Override capability.
Override justification.
Review status.
Escalation requirements.
Decision history.
Approval history.
Rejection history.

The AI may recommend, compare, explain, calculate, and identify risks, but it must not conceal uncertainty or prevent appropriate human review.

Optional Plugin Modules

Optional plugins extend CompDesigner without making specialized functionality part of the required core.

Payroll Integration Plugin

Payroll-system integration.
Payroll calculation synchronization.
Wage synchronization.
Withholding synchronization.
Tax reporting synchronization.
Payroll reconciliation.
Compensation change synchronization.

Benefits Administration Plugin

Benefits enrollment.
Benefits election synchronization.
Eligibility synchronization.
Enrollment deadlines.
Benefit utilization tracking.
Plan-document integration.
Benefits reporting.

Retirement Plan Plugin

Qualified retirement plan analysis.
Contribution optimization.
Employer match analysis.
Vesting analysis.
Contribution-limit monitoring.
Nondiscrimination testing support.
Retirement scenario analysis.
Plan comparison.

Equity Compensation Plugin

Equity award modeling.
Stock option analysis.
Restricted equity analysis.
Vesting schedules.
Tax-event modeling.
Liquidity analysis.
Exercise scenarios.
Equity compensation comparisons.

Banking and Cash Management Plugin

Insured deposit comparisons.
Bank-rate comparisons.
Sweep-program analysis.
Liquidity comparisons.
Deposit-insurance analysis.
Rate-change monitoring.
Concentration monitoring.

Tax Professional Review Plugin

Professional review workflows.
Review requests.
Supporting-authority packages.
Recommendation packages.
Tax calculation packages.
Reviewer comments.
Reviewer approvals.
Reviewer rejection.
Review history.

Legal Review Plugin

Legal review workflows.
Legal-authority packages.
Compliance issue escalation.
Legal uncertainty tracking.
Reviewer comments.
Legal approvals.
Legal rejection.
Review history.

Government Authority Plugin

Government source retrieval.
Tax authority source verification.
State authority verification.
Local authority verification.
Regulation verification.
Official guidance verification.
Source freshness monitoring.

Compensation Benchmarking Plugin

Compensation benchmarking.
Market compensation comparison.
Employee-class benchmarking.
Geographic benchmarking.
Industry benchmarking.
Benefit benchmarking.
Total economic value benchmarking.

Workforce Planning Plugin

Workforce compensation modeling.
Hiring-cost analysis.
Retention-cost analysis.
Compensation budget forecasting.
Workforce scenario planning.
Employee-class optimization.
Multi-year workforce cost modeling.

Accounting Integration Plugin

General ledger synchronization.
Compensation expense synchronization.
Benefit expense synchronization.
Employer tax synchronization.
Compensation accrual support.
Reporting reconciliation.

Document and Compliance Plugin

Plan-document generation.
Compensation-document generation.
Election documentation.
Approval documentation.
Compliance documentation.
Audit package generation.
Documentation versioning.

Security, Privacy, and Data Governance

CompDesigner should protect compensation, employee, employer, tax, benefits, and financial information.

Features include:

Data minimization.
Purpose limitation.
Access controls.
Employee-level access controls.
Employer-level access controls.
Professional-review access controls.
Audit logging.
Data retention controls.
Historical recommendation preservation.
Secure handling of tax information.
Secure handling of compensation information.
Secure handling of benefit information.
Data export.
Data deletion where legally permissible.
Transparency regarding information used in recommendations.
Separation of employee and employer information where appropriate.

Interoperability and Portability

CompDesigner should avoid unnecessary dependence on a particular vendor, institution, payroll provider, benefits provider, financial institution, or jurisdiction-specific service.

Features include:

Portable employee compensation records.
Portable recommendation records.
Portable employer program definitions.
Portable tax calculations.
Portable audit histories.
Portable legal authorities.
Portable scenarios.
Portable employee elections.
Vendor-neutral compensation models.
Vendor-neutral benefit models.
Vendor-neutral wealth-program models.
Replaceable external integrations.
Exportable reports.
Reproducible calculations.

Optimization Methodology

CompDesigner should evaluate compensation through a structured decision process:

Collect employee facts.
Collect employer facts.
Determine applicable jurisdictions.
Determine employee and compensation classifications.
Determine benefit eligibility.
Identify applicable federal rules.
Identify applicable state rules.
Identify applicable local rules.
Identify available compensation structures.
Identify available benefit structures.
Calculate current tax liability.
Calculate proposed tax liability.
Calculate employee economic value.
Calculate employer total cost.
Evaluate liquidity.
Evaluate long-term wealth.
Evaluate administrative burden.
Evaluate compliance requirements.
Evaluate legal uncertainty.
Stress test the recommendation.
Conduct independent AI legal peer review.
Conduct equity analysis.
Rank alternatives.
Present the recommendation and alternatives.
Obtain required human approvals.
Record the final decision.
Preserve the recommendation version and audit trail.
Monitor for future changes in law or circumstances.

Specification Branding License (SBL)

Standard

Fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant system.
Copyleft enforced for network deployments.
Required attribution:
- Roxanne Ardary.
- https://www.roxanneardary.com/

Optional

Specification Branding License (SBL)
- Attribution-free commercial deployment.
- Pricing based on scale, usage, and deployment scope.
- https://roxanneardary.com/compdesigner/

License & Notice Requirements

CompDesigner is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).

By contributing to any Open Arsenal project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.

Please note the following:

All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to: Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
CompDesigner specifications are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
The project’s notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments. Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.

For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project’s notice.md file.

Notice – CompDesigner

Attribution Requirement: Under Section 7 of the AGPL 3.0+ license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works, including network-deployed versions of this project, must provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.

Contributors

This file tracks contributors and their specific contributions to the project.

Roxanne Ardary, roxanneardary.com – September 14, 2026
Created the repository for CompDesigner. Developed the specification for an AI-driven compensation design and optimization system focused on lawful tax minimization, employee economic value, benefits, compliance, and compensation strategy.
Add other contributors here – [Date]
[Describe contribution in one sentence]

License – CompDesigner

This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).

Key Points

You are free to use, modify, and distribute the code.
All redistributions, forks, and derivative works or network-deployed versions must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0+ and provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com as required under Section 7 of the license.
The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind.

For the full license text, see GNU AGPL-3.0 License.