Browsing: retirement

Q. I retired under FERS two years ago, and I haven’t needed to touch my Thrift Savings Plan account so far. I am receiving Office of Personnel Management, Social Security and military retirements. I am 68½ years old. I just received a 100 percent Veterans Affairs Department disability award, which will change my taxable military retirement to a nontaxable VA retirement. I don’t think this will have any effect on my long-term life expectancy. I have determined that I do not want to elect an annuity on withdrawing from my TSP. I am considering immediately starting a monthly TSP withdrawal…

Q. I will be retiring in May with 25 years of federal law enforcement service. I will be 50 years old and subject to penalties and taxes on a one-time, age-based partial withdrawal from my Thrift Savings Plan. If I withdraw $20,000 to take care of bills and home repair, how much should I request from my TSP account to cover the taxes and penalties? A. Your withdrawal will be subject to 20 percent minimum mandatory federal tax withholding, so to receive $20,000 from the TSP, you’ll need to request $25,000. The actual federal income tax, early withdrawal penalty and…

Q. I retired from the federal government under CSRS. I turned 70½ years old in May. I have $40,000 in my Thrift Savings Plan account. I am thinking about withdrawing all of my funds in a lump sum. Is this a good idea? How will this affect my tax obligations? What do you recommend? A. The money you withdraw from your TSP account will be counted as ordinary income for tax purposes. If you need the money, then fine. If not, you should leave it in the TSP for as long as possible.

Q. I am a federal employee, almost 30 years old and contribute to my Thrift Savings Plan, as well as a Roth IRA toward retirement. I contribute the maximum to my Roth IRA at $5,500 a year and contribute 15 percent of my $82,500 salary (approximately $12,500 a year). I have a comfortable emergency account, life insurance, $500 per month to a 529 plan for my 1-year-old, on top of the basic necessities. How much should I be contributing if I can’t max both my TSP and Roth IRA? Should I continue with this allocation, or should I be maxing…

Q. I am thinking of retiring in about a year and will have approximately $310,000 in my Thrift Savings Plan account. The remaining cost of my mortgage is going to be about $140,000. Is using the TSP funds to pay off the mortgage an option? How much would I be taxed if I opted to go this route? If this does not sound smart, please suggest a smarter idea that I might use. A. It is an option, but the money will be taxed as ordinary income and may be subject to the early withdrawal penalty, depending on your age.…

Q. I will be retiring at age 52 with 27 years as a law enforcement officer. If I do a partial withdrawal of the Thrift Savings Plan for down payment on a house, I know I pay taxes.  I also would pay a penalty as I would be taking the partial withdrawal before age 55. Is the penalty 10 percent or 20 percent? Is the penalty directed at the entire amount withdrawn or toward the amount after taxes? A. The penalty is 10% of the gross amount.

Q. At age 59½, I would like to take an in-service withdrawal in June of about $100,000 from my Thrift Savings Plan. I plan to retire in December at age 60. Once I take the one-time, in-service withdrawal, can the rest be set up on monthly payments after I retire in December? A. Yes. Monthly payments are a form of full withdrawal.

Q. I recently decided to shift the corporate bond portion of my overall portfolio into my retirement accounts (i.e., shift my retirement account holdings largely into corporate bonds, and shift my taxable account holdings away from them) since the income from bonds is taxed at a higher rate than income from equities. Since the Thrift Savings Plan is about one-third of my retirement account money, I took a closer look at the F Fund and I was shocked to see that the majority of the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index that the F Fund tracks is treasuries. I think…

Q. I retired from active duty two years ago and have worked in civil service for one year.  I am contributing 10 percent of my civil service base pay and have a fairly good amount in my active-duty military Thrift Savings Plan. I am entertaining the idea of consolidating my TSP plans for a couple of reasons. First, simplicity of managing one account.  Secondly I believe, from what I have read on numerous sites, I will have greater control of current and future funds using the civil service side of TSP versus the active-duty military side. By this, I mean in-service withdrawals,…

Q. I understand there is a way to roll over a Thrift Savings Plan account to a Roth IRA so the funds transferred are not taxed. Can you point me to guidelines on how to do that?  I am preparing to retire as a CSRS annuitant. A. This is only possible with a Roth TSP balance.

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