USA — Military Retiree Pay Dates to Change

CLEVELAND, Sept. 6, 2011 — Pay­days for mil­i­tary retirees and those who receive por­tions of retired pay are chang­ing for the months of Sep­tem­ber and Decem­ber, as the Defense Finance and Account­ing Ser­vice changes its pay sched­ule to com­ply with the 2011 Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act.

The 2011 NDAA requires mil­i­tary retiree pay to be processed on the first day of the month. When that day falls on a week­end or nation­al hol­i­day, the pay date is moved to the pre­vi­ous busi­ness day. 

This year pay­ments nor­mal­ly sched­uled for Oct. 3, 2011 will be issued on Sept. 30, 2011 and pay­ments nor­mal­ly sched­uled for Jan. 3, 2012, will be issued on Dec. 30, 2011. For the cal­en­dar year 2011, this means mil­i­tary retirees will receive 13 rather than the nor­mal 12 payments. 

The 13th pay­day on Dec. 30 falls with­in the 2011 tax year, which could affect the tax lia­bil­i­ty of some retirees and those who receive por­tions of their retired pay. Cus­tomers should speak with a tax advi­sor, the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice or their state tax author­i­ty to deter­mine if their tax with­hold­ing will sat­is­fy fed­er­al and state income tax­es when they file returns next year. DFAS can­not pro­vide tax advice. 

For tax year 2012 and beyond, retirees will receive their nor­mal 12 payments. 

This change affects reg­u­lar retired pay, Con­cur­rent retire­ment and dis­abil­i­ty pay and com­bat relat­ed spe­cial com­pen­sa­tion. The new rule also applies to retiree allot­ments, gar­nish­ments and court-ordered for­mer spouse and child sup­port pay­ments. It does not affect annu­ity payments. 

If retirees need to make changes to their fed­er­al or state tax with­hold­ing, the quick­est and most secure way to do so is through myPay. Avail­able 24 hours-a-day, sev­en days-a-week, myPay enables eli­gi­ble users around the world to make rou­tine changes to their pay infor­ma­tion, includ­ing tax with­hold­ing, that become effec­tive with­in days. 

Cus­tomers who can­not access myPay can change fed­er­al with­hold­ing amounts by com­plet­ing a new IRS Form W‑4 or W‑4P, or change state with­hold­ing amounts using a DD 2866. These forms can be found on the DFAS web site, www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/forms.html, and should be mailed or faxed to the below address once completed: 

Defense Finance and Account­ing Ser­vice
U.S. Mil­i­tary Retired Pay
P.O. Box 7130
Lon­don, KY 40742–7130
Fax: 800–469-6559

It may take up to 30 days for changes to be made when mail­ing in a paper form. 

The Defense Finance and Account­ing Ser­vice pro­vides respon­sive, pro­fes­sion­al finance and account­ing ser­vices to the men and women who defend Amer­i­ca. DFAS pays about 6.4 mil­lion peo­ple and in FY 2010 made 8.1 mil­lion trav­el pay­ments, paid 11.4 mil­lion com­mer­cial invoic­es, made $578 bil­lion in dis­burse­ments to pay recip­i­ents, and man­aged $487.9 bil­lion in mil­i­tary retire­ment and health ben­e­fits funds. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)