Q. I am a 56-year-old retired military man. I have 10 years in with civil service. I have filed for military disability due to health problems associated with my military career. Can I draw 100 percent disability from the VA and file for disability from my civil service job and Social Security? If so, how does one calculate the resulting monthly payment?
A. If you are approved for disability retirement, your annuity for the first 12 months would be 60 percent of your high-3, minus 100 percent of any Social Security disability benefit to which you are entitled. After that, your annuity would be 40 percent of your high-3, minus 60 percent of any Social Security disability benefit. Assuming that you continued to be disabled, at age 60 your annuity would be recomputed to include all of your service and the years you were on disability retirement. Any VA disability benefit you might be entitled to wouldn’t affect your FERS annuity. However, since this is a site for federal employees and retirees, I don’t know if there would be any negative interaction between that military service-based VA disability benefit and any Social Security disability benefit.
