Get Six Free Months of Railroad Retirement

Transcript:

What railroader doesn't like free money?

Welcome, everyone, to another edition of the Highball Advisors Railroad Retirement Whiteboard. My name's John McNamara and today we're talking about free money. No, what we're really talking about is retroactivity of your railroad retirement annuity. What am I talking about? Well, there's a way to go back and get six months of unclaimed railroad retirement after you've retired. What I'm talking about is if you have six months for your full age annuity, so if you've claimed your annuity, you can go back six months. What's the thing you have to remember? You have to be at full retirement age, so if you have 30 years and are 60, that's your full retirement age. If you're not, if you don't have your 30 years, then Social Security rules apply. I'll just use this case. If you're 67, that means 1960 or later, that's your full retirement age.

Now, there's no retroactivity, meaning you can't go back and get that six months of benefits, if you're under the full retirement age. Let me walk you through an example to show what I'm talking about here. Let's say a railroader has 30 years. Things have come up and they're going to retire at 60 and a half. All right, maybe they got to finish up a project, maybe they're waiting for some options or something. I don't know, but let's just say 60 and a half, and then they retire. They can get their benefits back from 60, so that's a free six months, which is great because, because there's really no addition. It's not growing anymore, because they're already at full retirement age, so that's a free six months right there of retirement benefits. For somebody who has 30 years, that's a significant amount of money, for sure.

Now, a railroader with less than 30 years, once again, have to be at that full retirement age. In this case, they would have to be 1960 or later, would be at 67 and half. They retire a little bit later, but they can go back to 67 and get those six months free of benefits back from there. That's like that tier two, you're definitely going to be losing, so you want to maybe perhaps go back to that. Now, these are for this service and age annuity. It also applies to survivor annuities. However, the survivor, the applicant, has to be at full retirement age.

These are little things that you think about. I don't like when you're leaving money on the table. If this is something that you're thinking about, go out and grab that money. You've worked hard for it. Everyone, please reach out to me. If you want to go through the Board for Railroad Retirement process, I'll spot these things for you. That's for sure, if you go through that assessment. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, which I appreciate. Click on the notification bell to get the latest video, and until next time, everyone, please stay safe, stay on track and take care. So long, everybody. Bye.

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Disclaimer: This article is provided for general information and illustration purposes only. Nothing contained in the material constitutes tax advice, a recommendation for purchase or sale of any security, or investment advisory services. Highball Advisors encourages you to consult a financial planner, accountant, and/or legal counsel for advice specific to your situation. Reproduction of this material is prohibited without written permission from Highball Advisors, and all rights are reserved from Highball Advisors, and all rights are reserved.