Increase Number Of Leave Days Leave Accrual
The number of annual leave days a federal employee gets is affected by their years of service. On fedweek.com, it is said that most federal employees are entitled to:
- 13 days each leaves year if they have 3 years of service but less than 15 years of service
- 26 days each leaves year if they have 15 or more years of service
Therefore, if you are a federal employee who buys back military time, you have a higher number of service years under your belt and will qualify for more annual leave days.
Note
The specific accrual of annual leave can depend on your duty type and other factors. Thus, refer to commerce.gov/hr/practitioners/leave-policies for details.
How Will Military Buyback Affect My Federal Retirement
Military buyback can make a big difference in your federal retirement. This easy to use calculator will help you determine your deposit.
If you have active honorable military service that isnt already being used towards a military retirement there is a very good chance that you can buy that time back and have it count towards your federal retirement.
If you do a military buyback it will increase the number of years in service that are used for your annuity/pension calculation. The more years you have the larger your federal pension.
If thinking about retirement feels overwhelming, youre not alone. It can be difficult to navigate your retirement benefit package. United Benefits trained retirement specialists can help you understand your retirement options. We offer one-on-one retirement assistance and classes to members. Schedule a consultation to learn more.
Cost To Have Myfedbenefits Help You Complete Your Buy Back
MyFEDBenefits is a free resource for all federal employees. We help you with benefits and retirement questions and challenges. Its what we do. Included with this is the Buyback Blueprint, which were providing at no charge to help veterans of the Armed Forces who are now serving our country in the civilian federal workforce. Its our way of saying thank you for your service.
If you, a family member, or colleague need help buying back your military time to apply towards your career and retirement benefits, take the first step today: use the military buy back calculator to calculate the cost of your military service deposit, and then request a Buyback Blueprint. It will almost definitely be the smartest decision you make in planning for your career and your retirement.
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Option To Retire With Full Benefits Early
To qualify for early retirement for FERs, you must:
- Be at your lowest retirement age and have a minimum of 30 service years
- 60 years old with a minimum of 20 service years
- 62 years old with a minimum of 5 service years
If you choose to buy back military time, you may meet one among these following criteria and become eligible for early retirement.
For example, if you are 58 years old, have 15 years in civilian service, and have 15 years in military service, you can buy the 15 years back.
Once you do so, you will be able to obtain 30 years of creditable service time. Thus, you will be able to retire when you are 58 years old and not have to wait until you are 60.
Note
If you are a CSRS employee, the details differ, and a related matter is catch 62 military buy back. But this is a topic for another day.
Qualifying Periods Of Free Military Service
Members who joined OPERS prior to July 1, 2000 may be granted service free of cost for certain periods of active military service. The credit is limited to specific periods of active military service listed in paragraph 23 of Section 902 of Title 74 of the Oklahoma Statutes, which includes the following:*
| 45th Division |
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Military Buyback: Lets Look At An Example
Bob served 3 years as an enlisted member of the military: 1973, 1974 and 1975.
Later in 1988, Bob began his federal career under FERS. He now has 22 years of service.
Bob wants to know if he should buy back his military time.
First, we need to total up Bobs military base pay:
Now for the interest:
For an easy example, well say Bob was hired under FERS on Jan 1, 1988.
Bobs grace period on military buyback was from Jan 1, 1988 Jan 1, 1990. The first date interest will be added to his deposit is a year following the grace period: Jan 1, 1991. Interest will continue to accrue until Bob pays the entire deposit due.
For Bobs example, if he were to pay back his deposit now, it would be approximately $1,300 including the interest.
You Must Buy Back Your Military Time To Change Your Scd Rif Date
This is where you have to decide to buy back your military service time to count toward your federal service. If you decide to buy back your military service time, you will have to write the government a check for 3%* of the base military pay you earned while you were in the military, or have the amount withheld from your future paychecks. .
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What Information We Collect
PSPP Corporation collects information provided by you and your employer. In general, we collect and use information about you for pension administration purposes, to deliver member and pensioner benefits, and to keep you informed about your specific pension .
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Cost To Purchase Military Service
Military service credit may be purchased at actuarial cost, which represents the amount required to fund an increase in future lifetime benefits. Use the calculator below to estimate the cost of purchasing military service credit.
Military Service Purchase Calculator
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Applying For Military Service Credit
To be eligible for credit, you will need to submit an Application for Military Service and a Defense Department Form 214 and other military documents showing active duty dates and honorable discharge. Military service newly allowed by House Bill 3709 can only be granted for applications submitted on or after November 1, 2022.
Employees joining OPERS after June 30, 2003, will not receive credit for military service in OPERS if the credit was already received for the same period of military service in another Oklahoma state retirement system.
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This Privacy Notice only addresses PSPP Corporation’s use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information. As this website may contain links to other websites, please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites, and we are not liable for their misuse of personally identifiable information. We encourage you to be aware that when you go to another website you should carefully read its privacy statement.
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Who Can Buy Back Their Military Time
All non-retired military veterans can buy back their military service time through a Military Service Credit Deposit. You should consider buying back your military time even if you dont think you will work for the federal government for a long time.
You only need 5 years of federal service to qualify for a deferred annuity, which is a pension you can begin drawing at age 62. Even a small pension will be valuable in your retirement years.
Graduates from the Service Academies can also buy back their academy time, which is an amazing benefit because Service Academy Cadets only earned a small stipend during their Academy days. This makes the cost to buy that time inconsequential compared to the return they would receive in federal service time and annuity value.
Note:
Members of the Guard and Reserves are able to buy back their active duty time and work toward dual pensions. This is what Eddie is doing. He applied his active duty time toward his FERS retirement, and he will receive his FERS pension when he reaches age 60. He is also working toward his retirement from the Navy Reserves, which he would also receive at age 60 .
Federal law prohibits retired active duty military members from buying back their military time and adding it to their FERS pension . As noted earlier, military retirees should still look into getting credit for their Service Computation Date for Leave.
What If You Dont Have Good Records
The HR department can figure out your effective pay based on your DD 214 and historic pay tables. However, Eddie mentioned it is much easier to do the computations yourself to not only make their job easier, but so you can ensure accuracy. No one has a greater interest than you in making sure the calculations are done correctly. So do your homework on your end to ensure accuracy to make sure you dont have to 1) pay more to buy back your military time, and 2) you get credit for all your military time.
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Cost Of Waiting To Complete Your Buy Back
First, let’s get the facts straight about buying back your military time. You have a 24-months interest-free grace period that begins on the day you’re hired as a civilian federal employee under the Federal Employees Retirement System or the Civil Service Retirement System . If you have recently entered the federal workforce, this is absolutely when you should get it done. If you’ve exceeded the grace period, then the cost of buying back your time increases every year that you serve in the federal workforce. Interest accrues once per year, compounded annually, and the rate of interest you pay is different for each year. Also, you cannot buy back your time after you retire, it must be done prior to separation as a retiree. Simply put the longer you wait, the more it costs, and the less time you have to complete the deposit!
In order to have your military time credited, you must complete several steps to account for the time you served. And if you want your military time to count toward a FERS or CSRS pension, it’s important to take action now. The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure that buying back your time makes sense. There are certain situations where it doesn’t. In general, the best way to find out if a buy back makes sense, is to estimate the cost of your service deposit, and then find out how much will be added to your pension at retirement. You can easily get both pieces of information using the calculator above.
Meet Our Expert Eddie Wills Of Gubmintscom
In this podcast, I interview Eddie Wills, a military veteran who writes about Personal Finance and Benefits for Federal Employees and Veterans at this site, GubMints.com, where he helps federal employees and military veterans navigate the tricky paths of federal benefits, including buying back military time, computing your service dates, applying for retirement, understanding your Thrift Savings Plan benefits, the Federal health insurance system, and much more.
Today he is joining us to discuss Military Service Credits, or Buying Back Military service time in order to increase your federal pension. This is an important topic for all veterans currently serving in the Federal Service, or those who are considering going into the Federal sector after they leave the military.
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Calculating Your Buy Back Amount
To help make the buy back process simple, MyFEDBenefits has launched a Military Time Buy Back Calculator. By entering just a few simple pieces of information, the calculator can quickly find the estimated total earnings for a specific period in a military career, the military service deposit needed to buy back your time, and even an estimated bi-weekly payroll deduction should you decide to have your buy back automatically deducted from your paycheck over the number of years you have until retirement.
Email And Internet Communications
Communication by email over the Internet and other publicly accessible networks is not secure. Any information that you send by email may be lost, intercepted or altered while it is being transmitted. If you choose to send information to APS or PSPP by email or over the Internet, you do so at your own risk. APS and PSPP do not assume any liability for any damages you may experience, or costs you may incur, as a result of sending information by email or, should you request it, as a result of APS or PSPP sending information to you by email. This includes any such email that may contain your personal or confidential information.
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How To Make Payment For Creditable Service
Once you have reviewed your out-processing documents and determined what you received as a refund for your military time, you can begin to calculate the interest each year.
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When was your service?
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How much were you paid during your military service?
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How much interest has accrued at that time?
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Are you a FERS or a CSRS?
If you have your military pay records that is the best. However, if you no longer have a copy of your pay records, you can submit a copy of your DD-214 and send a request to your particular branch of the militarys pay center.
Take the amount of military base pay you received during your service, and multiply that amount by a percentage: CSRS use 7%, but FERS use 3%.
Why Would You Want To Buy Back Your Time
This is a great question, and one we love to answer. The benefits of buying back your time are significant. Beyond just the adding a significant amount to your pension at retirement, it can have some additional immediate benefits like increasing your leave accrual per pay period, faster vesting of your thrift savings plan, the option to retire early with full benefits, and enhance the seniority benefits in your current appointment. You really have a lot to gain from buying back your time.
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Cost To Buy Back Military Time
Needless to say, you will have to shell out money to buy back military time and get service credits. The rate you need to pay is as follows :
- 3 percent of your military basic pay if your date of service is through 12/31/98
- 25 percent of your military pay if your date of service is 1/1/99 to 12/31/99
- 4 percent of your military pay if your date of service is 1/1/00 12/31/00
- 3 percent of your military pay if your date of service is 1/1/01 to the present
Get More Upon Retirement
Your retirement pay depends on your service years. The FERS pension formula is:
So, for example, if your total creditable service years is 10, your salary is $200,000, and your multiplier is 1 percent, the gross annual FERS pension you are entitled to will be:
- 10 x $200,000 x 1% = $10,000
To get a monthly pension value take $10,000 / 12 = $833,333333
Say you have 15 service years in the military, the creditable service will increase to 25 years. Your new gross annual FERS pension will be:
- 25 x $100.000 x 1% = $25,000
And your monthly pension will be $2,083.33333
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Redeposit Of Military Time
If you left military service before being eligible for military retirement, your contributions to the retirement system and your employers contributions were refunded to you.
When you out processed from military service you received this refund. This is the amount that you must redeposit unto the Federal Employee Retirement System plus some interest.
The interest to redeposit your military time is assessed from the date that payment of your refund to the date you make your redeposit. The interest rate is compounded annually.
The interest rate to buy back your military time for eligibility to retire under FERS may be far less than you think. Here is an example in recent years what the published interest rate was:
Buying Back Military Time With A Military Service Credit Deposit
The FERS retirement system will reward those who have worked in the federal service, including military veterans. But in order for your military time to count toward a FERS retirement, you need to give the civil service the information they need to account for your time served. And if you want your military time to count toward a FERS pension, then you need to make a Military Service Credit Deposit to buy into the pension .
Well cover details for making a Military Service Credit Deposit a little later in this article. For now, lets look at Federal Service Computation Dates, which are important for calculating seniority, leave accumulation, and other factors.
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