If you leave federal government service or transfer to a job not under the CSRS or FERS and you are not eligible for an immediate annuity, you can choose to receive a refund of the money in your CSRS or FERS retirement account. The refund will include both regular and voluntary contributions you made to the fund, plus any interest payable.

If the refund includes only your contributions, none of the refund is taxable. If it includes any interest, the interest is taxable unless you roll it over into another qualified plan or a traditional individual retirement arrangement (IRA). If you do not have the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) transfer the interest to an IRA or other plan in a direct rollover, tax will be withheld at a 20% rate. See Rollover Rules in Part II for information on how to make a rollover.

Interest is not paid on contributions to the CSRS for service after 1956 unless your service was for more than 1 year but not more than 5 years. Therefore, many employees who withdraw their contributions under the CSRS do not get interest and do not owe any tax on their refund.

If you do not roll over interest included in your refund, it may qualify as a lump-sum distribution eligible for capital gain treatment or the 10-year tax option. If you separate from service before the calendar year in which you reach age 55, it may be subject to an additional 10% tax on early distributions. For more information, see Lump-Sum Distributions and Tax on Early Distributions in Publication 575.

A lump-sum distribution is eligible for capital gain treatment or the 10-year tax option only if the plan participant was born before January 2, 1936.

The CSRS or FERS annuity you receive is subject to federal income tax withholding, unless you choose not to have tax withheld. OPM will tell you how to make the choice. The choice for no withholding remains in effect until you change it. These withholding rules also apply to a disability annuity, whether received before or after minimum retirement age.

If you choose not to have tax withheld, or if you do not have enough tax withheld, you may have to make estimated tax payments.

You may owe a penalty if the total of your withheld tax and estimated tax does not cover most of the tax shown on your return. Generally, you will owe the penalty if the additional tax you must pay with your return is $1,000 or more and more than 10% of the tax shown on your return. For more information, including exceptions to the penalty, see chapter 4 of Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax.

To change the amount of tax withholding or to stop withholding, call OPM's Retirement Information Office at 1-888-767-6738 (customers within the local Washington, D.C. calling area must call 202-606-0500), or call Annuitant Express at 1-800-409-6528. No special form is needed. You will need your retirement claim number (CSA or CSF), your social security number, and your personal identification number (PIN) when you call. If you have TTY/TDD equipment, call 1-800-878-5707. If you need a PIN, call OPM's Retirement Information Office.

You also can change the amount of withholding or stop withholding through the Internet at www.servicesonline.opm.gov. You will need your retirement claim number (CSA or CSF) and your PIN.

The above document is also available on the Internet at www.tsp.gov. Select “Forms & Publications,” then select “Publications,” then “Tax Notices.”

If your gross income, including the taxable part of your annuity, is less than a certain amount, you generally do not have to file a federal income tax return for that year. The gross income filing requirements for the tax year are in the instructions to the Form 1040, 1040A, or 1040EZ.

Annuity statement.   The statement you received from OPM when your CSRS or FERS annuity was approved shows the commencing date (the annuity starting date), the gross monthly rate of your annuity benefit, and your total contributions to the retirement plan (your cost). You will use this information to figure the tax-free recovery of your cost.

Annuity starting date.   If you retire from federal government service on a regular annuity, your annuity starting date is the commencing date on your annuity statement from OPM. If something delays payment of your annuity, such as a late application for retirement, it does not affect the date your annuity begins to accrue or your annuity starting date.

Gross monthly rate.   This is the amount you were to get after any adjustment for electing a survivor's annuity or for electing the lump-sum payment under the alternative annuity option (if either applied) but before any deduction for income tax withholding, insurance premiums, etc.

Your cost.   Your monthly annuity payment contains an amount on which you have previously paid income tax. This amount represents part of your contributions to the retirement plan. Even though you did not receive the money that was contributed to the plan, it was included in your gross income for federal income tax purposes in the years it was taken out of your pay.

  The cost of your annuity is the total of your contributions to the retirement plan, as shown on your annuity statement from OPM. If you elected the alternative annuity option, it includes any deemed deposits and any deemed redeposits that were added to your lump-sum credit. (See Lump-sum credit under Alternative Annuity Option, later.)

  If you repaid contributions that you had withdrawn from the retirement plan earlier, or if you paid into the plan to receive full credit for service not subject to retirement deductions, the entire repayment, including any interest, is a part of your cost. You cannot claim an interest deduction for any interest payments. You cannot treat these payments as voluntary contributions; they are considered regular employee contributions.

Recovering your cost tax free.   How you figure the tax-free recovery of the cost of your CSRS or FERS annuity depends on your annuity starting date.

  Under both the General Rule and the Simplified Method, each of your monthly annuity payments is made up of two parts: the tax-free part that is a return of your cost, and the taxable part that is the amount of each payment that is more than the part that represents your cost. The tax-free part is a fixed dollar amount. It remains the same, even if your annuity is increased. Generally, this rule applies as long as you receive your annuity. However, see Exclusion limit, later.

Choosing a survivor annuity after retirement.    If you retired without a survivor annuity and report your annuity under the Simplified Method, do not change your tax-free monthly amount even if you later choose a survivor annuity.

  If you retired without a survivor annuity and report your annuity under the General Rule, you must figure a new exclusion percentage if you later choose a survivor annuity. To figure it, reduce your cost by the amount you previously recovered tax free. Figure the expected return as of the date the reduced annuity begins. For details on the General Rule, see Publication 939.

Canceling a survivor annuity after retirement.   If you notify OPM that your marriage has ended, your annuity might be increased to remove the reduction for a survivor benefit. The increased annuity does not change the cost recovery you figured at the annuity starting date. The tax-free part of each annuity payment remains the same.

  

For more information about choosing or canceling a survivor annuity after retirement, contact OPM's Retirement Information Office at 1-888-767-6738 (customers within the local Washington, D.C. calling area must call 202-606-0500).

Exclusion limit.   If your annuity starting date is after 1986, the total amount of annuity income that you (or the survivor annuitant) can exclude over the years as a return of your cost may not exceed your total cost. Annuity payments you or your survivors receive after the total cost in the plan has been recovered are fully taxable.

Annuity starting date before 1987.   If your annuity starting date is before 1987, you continue to take your monthly exclusion figured under the General Rule or Simplified Method for as long as you receive your annuity. If you chose a joint and survivor annuity, your survivor continues to take that same exclusion. The total exclusion may be more than your cost.

Deduction of unrecovered cost.   If your annuity starting date is after July 1, 1986, and the cost of your annuity has not been fully recovered at your (or the survivor annuitant's) death, a deduction is allowed for the unrecovered cost. The deduction is claimed on your (or your survivor's) final tax return as a miscellaneous itemized deduction (not subject to the 2%-of-adjusted-gross-income limit). If your annuity starting date is before July 2, 1986, no tax benefit is allowed for any unrecovered cost at death.

If your annuity starting date is after November 18, 1996, you must use the Simplified Method to figure the tax-free part of your CSRS or FERS annuity. (OPM has figured the taxable amount of your annuity shown on your Form CSA 1099R using the Simplified Method.) You could have chosen to use either the Simplified Method or the General Rule if your annuity starting date is after July 1, 1986, but before November 19, 1996. The Simplified Method does not apply if your annuity starting date is before July 2, 1986.

Under the Simplified Method, you figure the tax-free part of each full monthly payment by dividing your cost by a number of months based on your age. This number will differ depending on whether your annuity starting date is on or before November 18, 1996, or later. If your annuity starting date is after 1997 and your annuity includes a survivor benefit for your spouse, this number is based on your combined ages.

Instead of Worksheet A, you generally can use the Simplified Method Worksheet in the instructions for Form 1040 or Form 1040A to figure your taxable annuity. However, you must use Worksheet A and Worksheet B in this publication if you chose the alternative annuity option, discussed later.

If your annuity starting date is after November 18, 1996, you cannot use the General Rule to figure the tax-free part of your CSRS or FERS annuity. If your annuity starting date is after July 1, 1986, but before November 19, 1996, you could have chosen to use either the General Rule or the Simplified Method. If your annuity starting date is before July 2, 1986, you could have chosen to use the General Rule only if you could not use the Three-Year Rule.

Under the General Rule, you figure the tax-free part of each full monthly payment by multiplying the initial gross monthly rate of your annuity by an exclusion percentage. Figuring this percentage is complex and requires the use of actuarial tables. For these tables and other information about using the General Rule, see Publication 939.

If your annuity starting date was before July 2, 1986, you probably had to report your annuity using the Three-Year Rule. Under this rule, you excluded all the annuity payments from income until you fully recovered your cost. After your cost was recovered, all payments became fully taxable. You cannot use another rule to again exclude amounts from income.

The Three-Year Rule was repealed for retirees whose annuity starting date is after July 1, 1986.

If you are eligible, you may choose an alternative form of annuity. If you make this choice, you will receive a lump-sum payment equal to your contributions to the plan and a reduced monthly annuity. You are eligible to make this choice if you meet all of the following requirements.

If you are not eligible or do not choose this alternative annuity, you can skip the following discussion and go to Federal Gift Tax on page 9.

If, through the exercise or nonexercise of an election or option, you provide an annuity for your beneficiary at or after your death, you have made a gift. The gift may be taxable for gift tax purposes. The value of the gift is equal to the value of the annuity.

If you have recently retired, the following discussions covering annual leave, voluntary contributions, and community property may apply to you.

If you retired from federal service and are later reemployed by the Federal Government, you can continue to receive your annuity during reemployment. The employing agency usually will pay you the difference between your salary for your period of reemployment and your annuity. This amount is taxable as wages. Your annuity will continue to be taxed just as it was before. If you are still recovering your cost, you continue to do so. If you have recovered your cost, the annuity you receive while you are reemployed generally is fully taxable.

The following special rules apply to nonresident alien federal employees performing services outside the United States and to nonresident alien retirees and beneficiaries.

All of the money in your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account is taxed as ordinary income when you receive it. This is because neither the contributions to your TSP account nor its earnings have been included previously in your taxable income. The way that you withdraw your account balance determines when you must pay the tax.

A rollover is a tax-free withdrawal of cash or other assets from one qualified retirement plan or traditional IRA and its reinvestment in another qualified retirement plan or traditional IRA. You do not include the amount rolled over in your income, and you cannot take a deduction for it. The amount rolled over is taxed later as the new program pays that amount to you. If you roll over amounts into a traditional IRA, later distributions of these amounts from the traditional IRA do not qualify for the capital gain or the 10-year tax option. However, capital gain treatment or the 10-year tax option will be restored if the traditional IRA contains only amounts rolled over from a qualified plan and these amounts are rolled over from the traditional IRA into a qualified retirement plan.

To qualify for the capital gain treatment or 10-year tax option, the plan participant must have been born before January 2, 1936.

If you leave government service before the calendar year in which you reach age 55 and are under age 59½ when a distribution is paid to you, you may have to pay an additional 10% tax on any part, including any tax withheld, that you do not roll over. See Tax on Early Distributions in Publication 575.

If you received annuity benefits that are not fully taxable, report the total received for the year on Form 1040, line 16a, or on Form 1040A, line 12a. Also, include on that line the total of any other pension plan payments (even if fully taxable, such as those from the TSP) that you received during the year in addition to the annuity. Report the taxable amount of these total benefits on line 16b (Form 1040) or line 12b (Form 1040A). If you use Form 4972, Tax on Lump-Sum Distributions, however, to report the tax on any amount, do not include that amount on lines 16a and 16b or lines 12a and 12b; follow the Form 4972 instructions.

If you received only fully taxable payments from your retirement, the TSP, or other pension plan, report on Form 1040, line 16b, or Form 1040A, line 12b, the total received for the year (except for any amount reported on Form 4972); no entry is required on line 16a (Form 1040) or line 12a (Form 1040A).

If you retired on disability, the disability annuity you receive from the CSRS or FERS is taxable as wages until you reach minimum retirement age. Beginning on the day after you reach minimum retirement age, your payments are treated as a retirement annuity and you can begin to recover the cost of your annuity under the rules discussed in Part II.

If you find that you could have started your recovery in an earlier year for which you have already filed a return, you can start your recovery of contributions in that earlier year by filing an amended return for that year and each succeeding year. Generally, an amended return for any year must be filed within 3 years after the due date for filing your original return for that year.

The tax treatment of certain other benefits is explained in this section.

You can take the credit for the elderly or the disabled if:

You are a qualified individual for this credit if you are a U.S. citizen or resident and, at the end of the tax year, you are:

You are retired on permanent and total disability if:

Even if you do not retire formally, you are considered retired on disability when you have stopped working because of your disability.

Employee earnings.   Salary or wages earned by a federal employee but paid to the employee's survivor or beneficiary after the employee's death are income in respect of the decedent. This income is taxable to the survivor or beneficiary. This treatment also applies to payments for accrued annual leave.

Dependents of public safety officers.   The Public Safety Officers' Benefits program, administered through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, provides a tax-free death benefit to eligible survivors of public safety officers whose death is the direct and proximate result of a traumatic injury sustained in the line of duty. The death benefit is not includible in the decedent's gross estate for federal estate tax purposes or the survivor's gross income for federal income tax purposes.

  A public safety officer is a law enforcement officer, firefighter, or member of a public rescue squad or ambulance crew. In certain circumstances, a chaplain killed in the line of duty is also a public safety officer. The chaplain must have been responding to a fire, rescue, or police emergency as a member or employee of a fire or police department.

  This program may pay survivors a temporary benefit up to $3,000 if it finds that the death of the public safety officer is one for which a final benefit will probably be paid. If there is no final payment, the recipient of the temporary benefit is liable for repayment. However, the Bureau may not require all or part of the repayment if it will cause a hardship. If that happens, that amount is tax free.

  

For more information on this program, you may contact the Bureau of Justice Assistance by calling 1-888-744-6513, or 202-307-0635 if you are in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., calling area.

  

Additional information about this program is also available on the Internet at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA.

You may be entitled to a special FERS death benefit if you were the spouse of an active FERS employee who died after at least 18 months of federal service. At your option, you can take the benefit in the form of a single payment or in the form of a special annuity payable over a 3-year period.

The tax treatment of the special death benefit depends on the option you choose and whether a FERS survivor annuity is also paid.

If you choose the single payment option, use the following rules.

If you choose the 3-year annuity option, at least part of each monthly payment is tax free. Use the following rules.

If you receive a CSRS or FERS survivor annuity, you can recover the employee's cost tax free. The employee's cost is the total of the retirement plan contributions that were taken out of his or her pay.

How you figure the tax-free recovery of the cost depends on your annuity starting date. This is the day after the date of the employee's death. The methods to use are the same as those described near the beginning of Part II under Recovering your cost tax free.

The following discussions cover only the Simplified Method. You can use this method if your annuity starting date is after July 1, 1986. You must use this method if your annuity starting date is after November 18, 1996. Under the Simplified Method, each of your monthly annuity payments is made up of two parts: the tax-free part that is a return of the employee's cost and the taxable part that is the amount of each payment that is more than the part that represents the employee's cost. The tax-free part remains the same, even if your annuity is increased. However, see Exclusion limit, later.

If a federal employee dies before retiring and leaves no one eligible for a survivor annuity, the estate or other beneficiary will receive a lump-sum payment from the CSRS or FERS. This single payment is made up of the regular contributions to the retirement fund plus accrued interest, if any, to the extent not already paid to the employee.

The beneficiary is taxed, in the year the lump sum is distributed or made available, only on the amount of any accrued interest. The taxable amount, if any, generally cannot be rolled over into an IRA or other plan and is subject to federal income tax withholding at a 10% rate. It may qualify as a lump-sum distribution eligible for capital gain treatment or the 10-year tax option if the plan participant was born before January 2, 1936. If the beneficiary also receives a lump-sum payment of unrecovered voluntary contributions plus interest, this treatment applies only if the payment is received within the same tax year. For more information, see Lump-Sum Distributions in Publication 575.

The payment you receive as the beneficiary of a decedent's Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account is fully taxable. However, if you are the decedent's surviving spouse, you generally can roll over the payment tax free. If you do not choose a direct rollover of the decedent's TSP account, mandatory 20% income tax withholding will apply. For more information, see Rollover Rules in Part II. If you are not the surviving spouse, the payment is not eligible for rollover treatment. The TSP will withhold 10% of the payment for federal income tax, unless you give the TSP a Form W-4P to choose not to have tax withheld.

If the entire TSP account balance is paid to the beneficiaries in the same calendar year, it may qualify as a lump-sum distribution eligible for the 10-year tax option if the plan participant was born before January 2, 1936. See Lump-Sum Distributions in Publication 575 for details. Also, see Important Tax Information About Thrift Savings Plan Death Benefit Payments, which is available from the TSP.

The above TSP document is also available on the Internet at www.tsp.gov. Select “Forms & Publications.”

If you have a uniformed services TSP account that includes contributions from combat zone pay, see Uniformed services Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) accounts , under Reminders .

Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return, must be filed for the estate of a citizen or resident of the United States who died in 2004 if the gross estate is more than $1,500,000. Included in this $1,500,000 are any taxable gifts made by the decedent after 1976 and the specific exemption allowed for gifts by the decedent after September 8, 1976, and before 1977.

The gross estate generally includes the value of all property beneficially owned by the decedent at the time of death. Examples of property included in the gross estate are salary or annuity payments that had accrued to an employee or retiree, but which were not paid before death, and the balance in the decedent's TSP account.

The gross estate also usually includes the value of the death and survivor benefits payable under the CSRS or the FERS. If the federal employee died leaving no one eligible to receive a survivor annuity, the lump sum (representing the employee's contribution to the system plus any accrued interest) payable to the estate or other beneficiary is included in the employee's gross estate.

Decedent's retirement benefits.   Retirement benefits accrued and payable to a CSRS or FERS retiree before death, but paid to you as a survivor, are taxable in the same manner and to the same extent these benefits would have been taxable had the retiree lived to receive them.

CSRS or FERS annuity payments you receive as the survivor of a federal retiree are fully or partly taxable under either the General Rule or the Simplified Method.

If a deceased retiree has no beneficiary eligible to receive a survivor annuity, and the deceased retiree's annuity ends before an amount equal to the deceased retiree's contributions plus any interest has been paid out, the rest of the contributions plus any interest will be paid in a lump sum to the estate or other beneficiary. The estate or other beneficiary rarely will have to include any part of the lump sum in gross income. The taxable amount is figured as follows.

The taxable amount, if any, generally cannot be rolled over into an IRA or other plan and is subject to federal income tax withholding at a 10% rate. It may qualify as a lump-sum distribution eligible for capital gain treatment or the 10-year tax option if the plan participant was born before January 2, 1936. If the beneficiary also receives a lump-sum payment of unrecovered voluntary contributions plus interest, this treatment applies only if the payment is received within the same tax year. For more information, see Lump-Sum Distributions in Publication 575.

If you receive an additional survivor annuity benefit from voluntary contributions to the CSRS, treat it separately from the annuity that comes from regular contributions. Each year you will receive a Form CSF 1099R that will show how much of your total annuity received in the past year was from each type of benefit.

Figure the taxable and tax-free parts of your additional survivor annuity benefit from voluntary contributions using the same rules that apply to regular CSRS and FERS survivor annuities, as explained earlier under CSRS or FERS Survivor Annuity.

If you receive a payment from the TSP account of a deceased federal retiree, the payment is fully taxable. However, if you are the retiree's surviving spouse, you generally can roll over the otherwise taxable payment tax free. If you do not choose a direct rollover of the TSP account, mandatory 20% federal income tax withholding will apply. For more information, see Rollover Rules in Part II, earlier. If you are not the surviving spouse, the payment is not eligible for rollover treatment. The TSP will withhold 10% of the payment for federal income tax, unless you give the TSP a Form W-4P to choose not to have tax withheld.

If the retiree chose to receive his or her account balance as an annuity, the payments you receive as the retiree's survivor are fully taxable when you receive them, whether they are received as annuity payments or as a cash refund of the remaining value of the amount used to purchase the annuity.

If you have a uniformed services TSP account that includes contributions from combat zone pay, see Uniformed services Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) accounts , under Reminders .

A federal estate tax return may have to be filed for the estate of the retired employee. See Federal Estate Tax in Part IV.

Any income that a decedent had a right to receive and could have received had death not occurred and that was not properly includible in the decedent's final income tax return is treated as income in respect of a decedent. This includes retirement benefits accrued and payable to a retiree before death, but paid to you as a survivor.

If the federal estate tax was paid on the decedent's estate and you are required to include income in respect of a decedent in your gross income for any tax year, you can deduct the portion of the federal estate tax that is from the inclusion in the estate of the right to receive that amount. For this purpose, if the decedent died after the annuity starting date, the taxable portion of a survivor annuity you receive (other than a temporary annuity for a child) is considered income in respect of a decedent.

For more information, see Income in Respect of the Decedent in Publication 559.

Contacting your Taxpayer Advocate.   If you have attempted to deal with an IRS problem unsuccessfully, you should contact your Taxpayer Advocate.

  The Taxpayer Advocate independently represents your interests and concerns within the IRS by protecting your rights and resolving problems that have not been fixed through normal channels. While Taxpayer Advocates cannot change the tax law or make a technical tax decision, they can clear up problems that resulted from previous contacts and ensure that your case is given a complete and impartial review.

  To contact your Taxpayer Advocate:

  For more information, see Publication 1546, The Taxpayer Advocate Service of the IRS—How To Get Help With Unresolved Tax Problems.

Free tax services.   To find out what services are available, get Publication 910, IRS Guide to Free Tax Services. It contains a list of free tax publications and an index of tax topics. It also describes other free tax information services, including tax education and assistance programs and a list of TeleTax topics.