Q. My mother worked for the Department of the Army for 36 years. She retired at age 57 and died on March 22, 2007, at the age of 77. On April 1 of that year, her retirement check was deposited into her bank account for approximately $1,500.00. This money was returned to the federal government by her bank due to legal requirements of the government. What happened to that money? It seems to me that she was only retired for 20 years and she should have had at least 16 years left of retirement benefits. What happens to the remaining money she…
Browsing: lump sum
Q. I was wondering if, like annual leave, you get a lump sum for sick leave (50 percent before January 2014)? A. Absolutely not. Sick leave has no cash value. When you meet the age and service requirements for retirement, it can be added to your actual service and used in the computation of your annuity. If you are a FERS employee, only half that time will be added if you retire before Jan. 1, 2014.
Q. Can I retire from the Veterans Affairs hospital under FERS at age 55 with 25 years of service and withdraw my Thrift Savings Plan in lump sum? Or do I have to wait until my minimum retirement age? Can I leave at 55 and defer my retirement until I reach my MRA at 56? A. Reg Jones says: You can’t retire until you reach your MRA, which is 56. If you retired then, your annuity would be reduced by 5 percent for every year you were under age 60 (5/12 of a percentage point per year). You could delay…
Q. I am 60 years old and had emergency major open heart surgery May 16, 2011. The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., installed a left ventricular assist device. I had to stay away from my home in Georgia and stay close to the Mayo Clinic following this procedure for several months, which put a strain on my savings. I was forced to have to retire with approximately 37 years of government service. My retirement date was Sept. 2, 2011. I put in for an alternate retirement annuity because of my qualifying medical condition to help me pay my medical bills…
Q. My aunt has been retired since 1995 and has received her monthly pension since then. She has never married, and she does not know if she listed any beneficiaries to her pension after she passes on. How would we know? Does the pension extend to her siblings or nieces or nephews? She is 89 years old, and the siblings are 94 and 87. What will happen to her pension when she is gone? A. Her annuity ends with her death. When she dies and her death is reported to the Office of Personnel Management, they will let you know if…
Q. I am retiring June 30. My spouse is also a federal employee. If we decide not to elect survivor benefits for her from my retirement, what would she receive if I were to pass away? Health care is not affected, as she will receive my military Tricare and she has her own federal plan? A. If there were any unexpended retirement contributions in your account when you died, she’d be able to receive those in a lump sum. And the proceeds from any Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance you might have would go to her, unless you had already assigned them to someone else.
Q. If I set up a payroll deduction to pay my military deposit, are the payments pretax items on my leave and earnings statement, like with the Thrift Savings Plan, or do they get taxed like other earnings? If I make the payment with a lump sum, is there a way to deduct that on my taxes? If so, what do I need to do? I am a current FERS employee. I am at the point of paying back my military deposit for my six years active duty. I will either pay a lump sum by check or set up…
Q. I left the federal service 15 years ago, so I am a discontinued service employee with FERS and Thrift Savings Plan retirement accounts. I am 65 years old and have not started to take my FERS annuity payments, which should have started at age 62. Since I am making a reasonably good income outside of the federal government at the moment, I decided to hold off starting my FERS annuity payments until I actually retire — which may be in several more years, so I will be in a lower tax bracket. Is this a mistake? Are my assumptions correct in that whenever I…
Q. I remember reading somewhere that the best date for a CSRS Offset to retire is Jan. 10, 2013 because you can have a big lump sum of the annual leave. When is the first annuity check, then? A. The 2012 leave year ends Jan. 12, 2013. While retiring on that date would mean that your lump-sum payment for unused annual leave would be paid at the 2013 rate, you wouldn’t be on the annuity roll until February. You have to decide whether the potential increase in you lump-sum payment would be worth the loss of a month’s annuity. I wrote potential because…
Q. I will have a total of 448 hours of accumulated and unused annual leave (240 hours carried over from 2011 + 208 hours earned in 2012), as well as 32 hours of restored annual leave (from 2011) on Dec. 31, 2012, when I plan on retiring. May I receive a lump-sum payment for the entire 480 hours of annual leave, or am I not allowed to receive a lump-sum payment for the 32 hours of restored annual leave that will be under the two-year lose-or-use window? A. If the time limit for using that restored annual leave hasn’t expired, it…