Browsing: mandatory retirement

Q. I am a federal law enforcement officer. I recently read an article that discussed the downside of the Roth TSP for federal law enforcement officers and firefighters. Is this true? ************* Many of you are probably unaware of the serious pitfalls you will encounter if you opt to contribute to the Roth TSP.  For a federal law enforcement officer or firefighter, the Roth TSP is a poor choice. It wasn’t until this week that a reader posed a question to me that caused me to realize what a bad idea the Roth TSP is for many of us. The idea behind…

Q. I’m 25 years old, series 1811 and have been contributing 5 percent into the Thrift Savings Plan (FERS) for three years. Until last week, I was contributing 100 percent into the L2040 fund, but now I’m doing 65 percent into the S Fund and 35 percent into the I Fund. Since I still have about 32 years until mandatory retirement, do you think I am making the right TSP choices now, and do you have any recommendations? A. Your allocation is risk-inefficient. You could reconfigure it to deliver similar expected growth with much less volatility. If you don’t know…

Q. Federal employees now have the option of investing a portion of their Thrift Savings Plan contributions into the Roth option. As many of us know, contributions to the Roth TSP are from after-tax income. The benefit comes from tax-free earnings. The way I understand the rules, we must contribute to Roth for five years and not make any withdrawals until we are age 59½. The traditional TSP also uses the 59½ rule, unless we retire at age 55 or later. When we make withdrawals from our TSP account, the money is divided proportionately from both the traditional and Roth funds. For example:…

Q. I am a federal forestry tech (firefighter) and am facing mandatory retirement in 1½ years. I am wondering if the fiscal cliff will affect the Thrift Savings Plan like a couple years ago and the bottom will fall out. If so, would it be prudent to move my TSP more to more conservative accounts? A. No one knows what the future holds, but market timing only adds unnecessary risk to your investment strategy. Select and implement the asset allocation scheme that supports your goals with the minimum of risk and stick to it. That’s the safest bet.

Q. As a federal law enforcement officer facing mandatory retirement in 2013, I have been looking closely at my Thrift Savings Plan withdrawal options. When I retire and I leave my complete TSP balance in the G Fund, can I request withdrawals whenever I want and for whatever amount I want? I see that there are options for setting up a recurring amount each month or year, but can that be changed to month to month or whenever it is needed? For example, because receiving my full retirement pension amount in a timely manner will most assuredly not happen, would…

Q: I am a firefighter about to be forced to retire at 57 years old because of the mandatory retirement age. I plan on taking out my Thrift Savings Plan earnings to buy my house when I retire. Do I still have to pay the 10 percent penalty for withdrawing from my TSP before turning 59 1/2 even though I was forced to retire because of my age? A: Because you are retiring during or after the year in which you reach age 55, your subsequent TSP withdrawals will not be subject to the early withdrawal penalty.