Q. I have a daughter who is currently covered under FEHB and is 21. She will be 22 this November and I understand she will qualify for coverage again under FEHB effective Jan. 1, 2011. She currently works part time and is not eligible for insurance through her employer; however it is possible she may become full time/permanent within the next month. She would not be eligible for insurance until she has been a full-time employee for 90 days, which means she could possibly qualify for insurance through her employer by Jan. 1. My question is: Can she decline insurance…
Monthly Archives: September, 2010
Q. When I retired five years ago I was then divorced and did not arrange for any spousal survivor benefits. If I elect to marry or remarry, how would my pension be affected? A. If you were to marry, you would have two years to elect a survivor annuity for your new spouse. If you did, there would be two reductions in your annuity. The first would be the standard deduction to provide a survivor annuity, the amount to be determined by whether you elected a full or a partial survivor annuity. The second would be a permanent actuarial reduction. The…
Q. I’m a CSRS postal worker considering retirement. What happens to the money I’ve contributed to my pension when I retire or die while retired? A. Because you would have already paid taxes on the amount you contributed to the retirement system, a portion of your annuity will be nontaxable, following the rules published by the Internal Revenue Service. Therefore, if you have a spouse who is entitled to a survivor annuity, any contributions that haven’t been paid out to you would transfer over to his or her annuity and continue to be nontaxable until they ran out. If you have no spouse…
Q. I was active-duty military (Title 10) from 1987 to 1999. I became a military technician in 1999 under FERS and am currently still buying back those 11 years of active duty. I recently took an AGR (Title 32) position with the National Guard after 10 years of federal service as a military technician. At age 56 I intend to retire with 20 years of active duty as an AGR. This coincides with my federal MRA+10 (age 56 years). Can I collect a FERS retirement and a military retirement? Is there a particular strategy I should employ with these two retirements? i.e. submit…
Q. I am 48 years old and have six years of federal service under FERS. If I were to quit my job today, would I qualify for an annuity and when is the earliest I could start collecting on it? I know my MRA is age 56. A. Because you have at least five years of creditable service, if you resigned from the government, you could apply for a deferred annuity at age 62. That annuity would be based on your highest three consecutive years of average salary (your high-3) and your years and full months of service on the…
Q. I began Navy federal employment Dec. 6, 1986, just at the change from CSRS to FERS. This start date, however, is before the requirement that employees be placed in FERS, which I believe is Jan. 1, 1987. My initial appointment SF50 says I am CSRS at appointment, but I was moved at a later date into the FERS system, citing a change in retirement plan. I just noticed this when looking through my personnel records for a re-investigation of security clearance. I was never notified or gave approval to a change, except that this SF50, which came Jan. 8,…
Q. I medically retired from the Postal Service in 2003 and received 100 percent total and permanent disability from the VA the same year. Post office retirement is under CSRS and I failed to do the military payback for two years, nine months of service. I have 12 years employment under Social Security and my wife has none. I will be 62 in four months and have received notice from OPM that my CSRS annuity will probably be reduced when I become eligible for Social Security benefits. I have received vast amounts of conflicting information from people that I suspect have…
Q I have been an air traffic controller since November 1985. I was born in 1960. If I work until I am 56 (mandatory retirement), am I then, or at anytime, eligible for the 1.7 percent calculator for all the 30+ years I am employed? A. If you are an ATCS with 30+ years and retire at age 56, you have the option of the regular computation, 20 years at 1.7% and remaining years at 1%, or all years at 1.7%, however, if you choose the 1.7% for all years, you would get no cost of living adjustment until you…
Q. I have a question. I have 2,300 hours of sick leave. I am under CSRS. I have been having some back problems that will require extended sick leave. I am eligible to retire with 37.5 years of service. My question is this: Is it more advantageous to take a year off on sick leave or to retire and use the sick leave as an additional year of service? I know it adds 2 percent for the sick leave. A. You have a bigger problem than deciding which approach is the most advantageous to you. You aren’t the only player…
Q. I am a CSRS retiree and my wife is a FERS retiree. If we both take out a survivor annuity on our own retirements and one or the other of us passes away, can the survivor collect their own retirement and the survivor annuity from the deceased one? A. Yes