Q. I am a letter carrier, age 52, started in 1985 and have 28 years of creditable service. If I understand what I’ve gleaned from the posts here and the Postal Service were to offer me a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority this year, 1. Would I begin my annuity immediately? 2. Would I have no reductions in calculations of my annuity? (average high-3 x 1 percent x 28) 3. Would I receive credit for half of my sick leave and all of my annual leave? (How are these applied?) 4. Would I receive the special retirement supplement beginning at age…
Browsing: IRS
Q. I have 27½ years in the Postal Service and I am 52½ years of age. If an early-out comes in the next few months, will I get a penalty for leaving? Do I get my special retirement supplement, or do I have to wait for that? Also, do I get to take my Thrift Savings Plan now, or do I wait for that? A. Reg: If you were offered an opportunity to retire early, you have the age and service needed to accept it. If you did, you wouldn’t be subject to the age penalty and you’d be entitled…
Q. What is the percentage paid by the U.S. Treasury toward our monthly annuity account when we retire under CSRS? A. It’s not surprising that no one could answer the question, because there isn’t any one answer. It all depends. If an employee retired before June 2, 1986, all of his annuity payments were considered to be a return of his retirement contributions and weren’t taxable, since they had already been taxed as income while he was working. When the amount in his account ran out, all of the annuity payments he received were from the government and, as such,…
Q. My wife has a disability retirement from the Postal Service. She is deemed permanently and totally disabled by the Social Security Administration and receives the SSA disability benefit. She also receives a FERS disability annuity benefit. Is the FERS disability annuity federally taxable? If not, can you direct me to the IRS document that outlines how to file? A. It is taxable unless the Internal Revenue Service determines that she is totally disabled. You can call them at 1-800-829-4933.
Q. I am a recently retired CSRS employee. I note a huge inequity concerning my CSRS retirement contributions from the federal retirement benefits booklet the Office of Personnel Management sent me. I am told that I have a retirement contribution credit of $164,836 after-tax dollars. From this amount, I will get 310 equal monthly payments of $531.73 that will be a tax-exempt portion of my total monthly annuity. However, I am told once I receive gross monthly retirement benefits that exceed my contributions (tax exempt and taxed portion), there are no more contribution credits in my account, and no lump-sum…
Q. I will be retiring in June and am trying to compute the number of federal tax exemptions, etc., that I take. I looked through my notes from my last federal retirement planning class and saw that I jotted down that the amount withheld for survivor annuity from one’s monthly pension is a pretax item. I thought it would be smart to obtain verification or validation rather than assume I heard and recorded this correctly. If the survivor annuity withheld is subject to federal income tax at the time of withholding, then the portion withheld should be nontaxable when the…
Q. I am 64 years old and have nine years in CSRS. Four years were 1972 to 1976. At that time, I took my retirement out, then another seven months in 1985-86. I was reinstated in the federal government in February 2008, working for the IRS under seasonal but worked full time. I transferred in September with no break in service, accepting a position for the Defense Department. My service computation date gives me Feb. 4, 2004, under FERS. I signed up for Federal Employees Health Benefits at that point. I want to retire, but I need to take my…
Q. My father was a federal employee for more than 40 years. When he died, he had the highest civil servant rank possible. My mom died 15 months ago, and my dad died in September at the age of 86 after being retired for 24 years. He was receiving monthly annuity payments of over $6,000 a month until he died. We just received paperwork about a possible lump sum that would be whatever was left in his annuity that was not paid out in monthly payments. What is the likelihood that there is a lump sum left? Typically, do federal…
Q. My agency committed an error by moving me from CSRS to FERS. After 18 months and senatorial support, it was finally resolved; the agency satisfied the debt; and I retired Dec. 29. I have since received W2-Cs for past three years. I am looking at a decrease of approximately $17,000 in Social Security taxes withheld for those three years. Those monies were pulled back and put into my CSRS account. If the Internal Revenue Service determines that there is now a tax liability after filing my amended returns, can I make an appeal to the Office of Personnel Management…
Q. This year’s tax (2012) is the first I will file as a FERS retiree. I understand a portion of my retiree pay is a return of contributions and is tax-free. How do I report this? Will it be identified on my 1099? A. The 1099 form that the Office of Personnel Management sends you will show the amount of your retirement contributions. Plug that number into the worksheet you’ll find in Internal Revenue Service Publication 721, which you can access at www.irs.gov.