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…
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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. I retired from the USG (CSRS) on March 31. I began receiving an interim payment May 1. The Office of Personnel Management issued my retirement packet to a claims analyst July 24. So I assume I have a ways to go before finalization. When I receive my official retirement packet from OPM, will my withheld pay (difference in interim amount vs. full) be paid with interest? A. No.
Q. I have been told that my Social Security benefits may be reduced under the windfall elimination provision. Why would this apply to a British-born citizen who worked and contributed to the government retirement benefit program there and now receives a small pension there? I did not become an American citizen until 1999, although I worked and paid Social Security until 2001 and have earned enough credits to quality for benefits here. The amounts of both pensions are too small to live on and I am wondering how the government can justify what, in effect, amounts to withholding money from a fund that I paid into all these…
Q. When I retired, I selected a full survivor annuity for my spouse. She recently passed away. What happens to those funds that were withheld from my annuity to provide her survivor annuity? A. If you are asking if you are due a refund, the answer is no. However, once you have notified the Office of Personnel Management of your spouse’s death, your annuity will be increased to the level it would have been had you not elected a survivor annuity.
Q. I am considering reinstatement. I was with the Treasury Department for seven years and nine months, and left in January 1981 as Grade 12, Step 1. I received a refund of retirement contributions of approximately $6,000 when I left. How can I approximate what my pension will be if I return to the Treasury Department at a Grade 13, Step 1 and work for 5½ years. How would this calculation work if I wanted to calculate the pension at different dates? At the time I left, I was not required to make Social Security withholdings. I have made Social…
Q: My question is about the original conversion of retirement withholding, which was converted to Federal Employees Retirement System. I began working for the government in October 1984. So, I was hired as a FERS employee. In 1987, when FERS was officially set up and the money that had been withheld from our paychecks was placed in our FERS accounts, I had $660, which stayed in a Civil Service Retirement System marked account. It stayed there for many years until I switched agencies, and it was no longer listed on my Leave and Earnings Statement. My question is, what exactly…