Q. I started employment with the Defense Department in September 1981 under CSRS. In 1995, I took advantage of a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority/Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay because my organization was downsizing. I also took a refund on my retirement account, which I tried to invest in buying a home and lost it. I was reinstated in the government in 2004 and came back as CSRS Offset. I also rolled my 401(k) from the job I had outside the government into the Thrift Savings Plan. I will be 65 on March 7, and was planning to retire in May. Because I did not put my retirement back into the CSRS account, will that hurt my plans for retirement? Will my annuity be greatly reduced because I did not redeposit the funds? If so, by how much?
A. If you don’t redeposit the retirement contributions that were refunded to you, plus accrued interest, you’ll still get credit for that time in determining your total years of service. However, it won’t be used in your annuity computation. In effect, your annuity would be based solely on the time between when you returned to work for the government and when you retire.
