Q. I will be retiring with 20 years active-duty military in two years and am thinking about tapping into my Thrift Savings Plan for a 20 percent down payment on a home. I realize withdrawing early includes penalties I don’t want to pay. Would taking out a TSP loan be my best option? I’d like to use about $30,000 toward my retirement home, and the interest rates seem low enough I wouldn’t take that much of a hit. A. If you can repay it, a loan would be a reasonable way to avoid the early withdrawal penalty.
Browsing: retirement
Q. I will be age 54 at retirement. As a retired federal law enforcement officer, am I exempt from the 10 percent penalty for early withdrawal from my Thrift Savings Plan at retirement? I keep reading public safety personnel are exempt, but it reads as applying to state or municipality, but my status is federal. A. No, your LEO status does not exempt you from the early withdrawal penalty.
Q. My wife works for a dental office which has a profit-sharing plan. Only her employer makes contributions to this pretax plan. She will retire in one more year. We would like to do a direct rollover of her funds into my Thrift Savings Plan, so that all holdings can be distributed from this one account. However, I have been told by TSP personnel that the ownership of any plans to be transferred must be in my name, not my spouse’s name. Is there any legal way for getting her profit-sharing plan funds to transfer into my TSP account? For example, since I am 2½ years…
Q. I’m 59 and retiring June 2, which is the first day of a new pay period. Will my Thrift Savings Plan election and catch-up contribution be deducted from my last paycheck? I will have earned no salary in that pay period, but I will have my lump-sum annual leave payout. A. TSP deferrals are not taken from annual leave payout checks.
Q. I read your article on how to be a good pension fund manager today and, in regard to moving your money from the Thrift Savings Plan after you retire, you left out the biggest obstacle to leaving it in: You cannot add another penny of contribution for the rest of your life. Also, in regard to better results outside of the TSP, would you say that if you can beat the market indexes, which TSP is based on, you can beat TSP. Join up with the American Association of Individual Investors, whose model portfolios have smoked the market averages…
Q. I have been a federal employee for 27 years, just long enough to have been one of the first forced into FERS. About seven years ago, I looked at my Thrift Savings Plan statement and learned that the prediction was that if I retired at age 62 and bought an annuity, I would have a pretty good monthly salary. Now, I notice that the prediction is that if I use my TSP savings, with about the same amount predicted for me at age 62, to buy a monthly annuity, that annuity will be about one-third of what was predicted seven…
Q. I am a fully vested CSRS employee with the Environmental Protection Agency for 33 years at age 55. I have received my numbers, but I missed my first date to retire. How long does it take to receive my first full check? Should I take all of my Thrift Savings Plan out at once; leave about $10,000 in and roll it over to a Roth IRA; or leave it in the TSP? Is there a counselor at TSP to speak with about taxes and IRAs. A. You should leave your money in the TSP for as long as possible…
Q. I will be retiring at the end of this year with 37 years and 10 months of service. I am a CSRS employee and will be 57 years old in September. My annual annuity would be $81,958. I will have a little over $200,000 in my Thrift Savings Plan account. Is it smartest to take the spousal annuity or take out a life insurance policy on myself to sustain my wife once I pass away? My annual annuity will be reduced by around $7,900 a year if I chose the spousal annuity. Which would be the wisest? A. This isn’t your choice…
Q. I have been in the Foreign Service since 1986 and am being involuntarily retired for expiration of my time in class on Sept. 30, 2014. I will be 49 years old at the time. Even with an involuntary retirement, do I still get penalized for any lump-sum payment I take from the Thrift Savings Plan? I know annuities and equal payments are not penalized. A. There is no exception to the early withdrawal penalty for involuntary retirement.
Q. Based on a reading of Internal Revenue Service Publication 721, it appears to say that since the CSRS and FERS retirement systems are considered “eligible retirement plans” you could roll over a distribution (including a regular annuity payment) into another IRA and defer the taxes, or into a Roth IRA and pay the taxes immediately. If this is the case, the normal IRS limitation on contributions to IRAs and Roth IRAs are bypassed. Am I reading this correctly? A. From IRS Publication 721: “Distributions eligible for rollover treatment. If you receive a refund of your CSRS or FERS contributions when you…