Q. I retired in October 2005 under CSRS Offset at age 55, and I just turned 62 in April. Do I have to file for Social Security, call the Office of Personnel Management, call Social Security, or is everything taken care of automatically? My pay has not been adjusted other than a tax adjustment I requested. Are they overpaying me since I turned 62? I have just under 34 years and five months of service with about 16 years in CSRS Offset. What should I be doing, if anything at all? A. The reduction in your CSRS Offset annuity should…
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Q. After 38 years of contribution to my retirement fund, of $78,000, why do I have to wait for a full annuity payment? The money is there, and I need my full annuity monthly. Who can I speak to in order to get what I worked for? Also, why do I have to pay taxes on my annuity every month when I paid taxes when I was working for 38 years? I am under CSRS and my retirement date was five months ago. A. You have to wait because the Office of Personnel Management is both short-staffed and overloaded with…
Q. I am a CSRS employee expecting to retire Aug. 31. I will have completed 43 years and seven months of service. Accumulated sick leave will add one year and four months of service credit. I calculate that I have had about 20 months of CSRS retirement pay deducted beyond my 41 years and 11 months maximum. This totals about $18,000. I will repay about $5,000 (The Office of Personnel Management confirmed the amount due was $4,600 as of March 2011) to cover 3½ years of service credit while I worked at the Postal Service in college. That leaves about…
Q. I took a reduced Social Security annuity since I decided to draw two years ago at the age of 62. My husband was a government meteorologist for 33 years — three of them being Air Force. We were given the option to pay fully the Social Security for his years in the Air Force. No pension. It counted to his government service and that pension. So we did. $3,600 cash. He retired at 55. So he took a true reduced government annuity, since he did not retire at 65 with the 33 years of service. In the government, you…
Q. I worked for federal government for 20 years under CSRS, then resigned in 1997 and left my retirement contributions in CSRS, understanding that I could start to receive an annuity at age 62. Since that time, I have worked for 15 years for state government, paying into Social Security. If I were to return to federal service, into which retirement system would I be placed? What would the benefits be to returning to federal service as far as retirement benefits concerning CSRS and Social Security? A. Because you left your contributions in the retirement fund, you would be eligible…
Q. I am in FERS with a CSRS component, and I’m planning to retire in April 2013 after more than 35 years of continuous government service. Prior to working for the Defense Department in 1975, I had worked a summer in the post office with all the taxes paid, including Social Security. Would I be able to pay a FERS deposit for the two or three months I’ve worked at the post office and get credit for the FERS retirement annuity? Below is the info from the ABC-C website: FERS deposit service is any period of Federal civilian service performed…
Q. I am 62 and have been with the Postal Service for 26 years. I am hoping to retire this summer. I have a job-related permanent disability and have qualified for workers’ compensation. I have not yet started receiving compensation, but my payout figure on workers’ comp is significantly higher than my FERS pension and is also significantly higher than my Social Security pension, which will also begin this year. Are there any “offsets” to either my FERS pension or Social Security pension if I take the workers’ comp payment? Am I correct in understanding that I am entitled to…
Q. I completed a full one-year internship with the Veterans Affairs Department system (with annual leave and sick leave earnings) prior to my current federal employment. Three years after this internship ended, I obtained a job at a VA hospital. I have known other VA employees who have had this period counts toward changes in annual leave accrual from four to six hours. Upon my hire, I was informed that the VA hospital I worked at had some of the documentation but was missing a specific form required to change annual leave calculation. Hence, our human resources office could not…
Q. My agency was planning to conduct a reduction in force in November 2011. Prior to that, there was a mock RIF in which we pretty much determined where employees would bump/retreat to. Based on that information, I elected to apply for a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment and was approved in September 2011, under optional retirement (30 years FERS with minimum retirement age). Retirement would be by March 31, 2012, for the VSIP. Two months later, in November, the RIF was canceled, and a second VSIP date established, where we could leave Aug. 31. Since the RIF was canceled, I…
Q. I retired under CSRS after 31 years. My gross CSRS annuity is about $3,580 a month. I’ve worked for 15 years in the private sector. I now get about $800 a month from Social Security, and my wife gets about $700/month before deducting for Medicare. Would either of us qualify for spousal benefits from Social Security? A. Because you are receiving an annuity from CSRS, a retirement system where you didn’t pay Social Security taxes, any Social Security spousal benefit to which you’d be entitled would be affected by the government pension offset. The GPO would reduce that benefit…