Q. I am a civilian FERS employee who received a work related injury. Right now, I’m in the process of buying back my active military service (four years). My injury is one that may eventually put me out on FERS medical retirement. Can I collect federal medical retirement and VA disability? Would it be beneficial for me to stop my military buyback?
A. As long as you aren’t receiving military retired pay, you could receive both a FERS disability annuity and your VA disability benefit. While there wouldn’t be any short-term benefit to your completing your military buyback, if you were still on disability retirement when you reached age 62, it would affect the amount of your annuity. Age 62, your disability annuity would be converted to a regular annuity. If you had completed the deposit, those years would be included in that computation; if you didn’t, they wouldn’t.
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I have been on postal disability since 2003 after cardiac arrest an havin a defifibulator and pace maker put in me I was only 45 years old and had 23 years with the post office.. I’m now 62 receiving after all my deductions 1252 a month .. OPM is now deducting another $200 from my pension leaving me with 1052.. They said because I didn’t buy back my service time.. I was never told it was mandatory to buy back my service time is this legal .. I can’t even live and SSI is offsetting me by over 66 1/3 ..I have mounting medical bills a house and bills I’m going to lose everything.. Please advise … I’m on civil service disability
Yes, it is legal. As a rule, you can’t get credit for active duty service if you haven’t make a deposit.
Will I get this money back??.. Also they are going to recompute now that I’m 62 will I get more.. And if I do collect SSI which I know I’m offset are they going to take more from me??
What if I didn’t want to buy back my service time could they still deduct