Q. I was enlisted in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2008 and have been a full-time employee at the Social Security Administration since March 2012.
So, I have a uniformed services Thrift Savings Plan account and a civilian TSP account (using pretax and Roth contributions).
Nothing has been contributed to the uniformed services account since I left the Marines in 2008, so I asked someone in human resources here if I could combine the accounts. I was initially told this wasn’t possible, but after my own research, I found Form TSP-65 – Request To Combine Civilian and Uniformed Services TSP Accounts.
After I showed this to the HR office, I was told it wouldn’t be beneficial to combine the accounts because I would take a tax hit on the tax-free money that I made overseas while deployed to combat areas. This explanation doesn’t make too much sense to me because my TSP contributions were pretax contributions anyway (there was no Roth option at the time). Also, I don’t trust the info from my HR office after they were wrong about the ability to combine accounts.
Should I combine the accounts or leave them separate?
A. If you contributed tax-free combat pay to the TSP, you should keep the military account to preserve your ability to withdraw that money later without having to pay tax on it. Combat pay contributions are not the same as Roth contributions, and the two are not interchangeable.
