Q: I am 58 with 34 years of service. I have 41 quarters of Social Security credits and my SSA annual statement says my benefit at 62 will be $538. What percent will my SSA benefit be reduced by my civil service monthly pension of $3,337? My friend at work claims that veterans who served between 1957 and 2001 get an extra $100 a month added to their Social Security benefit. Is this true? A: The only practical way to estimate what the reduction in your Social Security benefit is to plug your numbers into a computer program and see…
Browsing: SOCIAL SECURITY
Q: My mother started with the U.S. Postal Service in 1974. Due to health issues, she retired on disability (not based on age or years of service) with her annuity commencing in September 1992. Her husband died in March and was receiving Social Security. When she applied for survivor benefits, it took almost three months for the Office of Personnel Managment to get back to Social Security and we were told even at that point they did not provide the information originally requested. Social Security made the decision that the survivor benefits fell under the windfall elimination provision. We are…
Q: I will retire at the end of this year with 33 years’ service in the Civil Service Retirement System. I will be 58 years old. I have 10 quarters of Social Security credits I earned before working for the federal government. Under a new law effective Jan. 1, 2010, federal employees can be re-employed after retirement on a part-time basis without the earnings affecting their retirement annuity. Am I assuming correctly that the part-time earnings I receive count toward Social Security? Is there an effect on the windfall elimination provision? A: You would be covered by Social Security during…
Q: I was a Federal Employees Retirement System employee and left the government in September 2005 under the Minimum Retirement Age +10 provision. I postponed my annuity to avoid the 5 percent penalty per year. I will be 62 in two months. Is there any advantage to waiting even longer to receive my annuity? Is it at all like Social Security, where the longer you wait, the more you receive? On the flip side, what are the downsides of applying at age 62? I understand that if I am re-employed by the government, my salary will be offset by my…
Q: My husband recently turned 62 and applied for Social Security benefits. He is a previous Civil Service Retirement System employee, so we know that his Social Security benefit will be reduced. The problem is that he was previously married and must pay his ex-spouse a large portion of his CSRS retirement. Yet when his retirement income from CSRS was taken into account in order to offset his benefits, the Social Security Administration used his gross benefit amount and did not subtract the annuity for his former spouse. This reduced his benefits by a large portion. Why is it that…
Q: My spouse is a civil service employee and is planning to retire within the next eight months. He is 64 years old and will be 65 in March. He could have retired at age 55 but did not because of personal reasons. His health is beginning to fail him now, and he cannot continue to work in his current capacity. He worked more than 10 years at other companies before joining the civil service. He can receive full retirement benefits from the Civil Service Retirement System, but he is also eligible for a very small Social Security check, they…
Q: I am need to clarify whether disability retirement becomes nontaxable once a person reaches retirement age. I cannot get a clear answer from the Office of Personnel Management or the Internal Revenue Service. I have gone over IRS Publications 721 and 525. My father left the Post Office on disability in 1972. He is now 78 years old, and I am trying to file his tax returns. He is not eligible for Social Security. A: There isn’t a tax break for a federal disability retiree unless he is totally disabled for all gainful employment. The retiree’s age has no…
Q: My husband is retiring with 40 years in the Civil Service Retirement System. We chose a survivor annuity. At age 62, I am eligible for a reduced Social Security benefit on my own earnings. If he dies, is my CSRS survivor annuity affected by my Social Security benefit, or vice versa? A: As long as you aren’t receiving an earned annuity from a retirement system where you didn’t pay Social Security taxes, neither your CSRS survivor annuity nor your earned Social Security benefit will be affected.
Q: If offered an early out by an agency, which presumably would allow for the special supplement to apply (the Office of Personnel Management website only says you “may” be entitled to), how is that computed? From what I read on the OPM website, the base amount figured on a 40 year pay into Social Security divided into the number of years of Federal Employees Retirement System service (in my case 24/40). Does the base figure assume I paid into Social Security up through 62 years of age (even though I haven’t); or the figure what I actually have paid…
Q: I retired at the end of 2007 but continued to work part time until February . I “failed” my first earnings test in June 2009, and my supplement was suspended that August. My earnings for 2009 were similar to 2008, but my earnings for 2010 will be below the threshold for a supplement reduction. When and how will my supplement get turned back on? A: According to the Office of Personnel Management, special retirement supplements are reviewed when it receives information on the annual survey they sent to retirees or from either the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service…