How To Apply for Railroad Retirement Annuity

Transcript:

Learn the proper procedures to get your railroad retirement annuity.

Welcome everyone, to another addition of the Highball Advisors' Railroad Retirement Whiteboard. My name's John McNamara of Highball Advisors. And today, I was looking over, I've done all these videos, in excess of 100 videos. And I was like, I haven't done a video on how to get your annuity. So I said, "Let's do it." How do you get your railroad retirement annuity? Now, obviously the Railroad Retirement Board is the official gold standard for that. But if you don't want to get through them, wait on the lines or whatever. I figured let's just do a short video, give you an overview, and then when you interface with the Railroad Retirement Board, they'll lend you more detail. All right.

So let's get started on how you apply for your railroad retirement annuity. This is for service and age annuity, this isn't disability. So service and age annuity, so three ways to do it, in person. Well, not really, because this is COVID, so they're really not doing in person yet, but you can eventually, hopefully again, sometime. By telephone, and then also by mail. You can start the process for the annuity. So you can call them up. They'll do take all your information. They'll send some stuff out to you, get it out to you, sign it and then off you go, all right.

And then when? When should you start this process? Up to three months before your retirement date. Early bird catches the worm. So I would start that three months before. Don't dilly dally as they say. So get that process of started. So it's up to three months. All right. And then what do you need to start collecting your railroad retirement? Well, they got to know how old you are, so birth certificate, proof of age, that type of thing. Social Security, very important. Do you have some Social Security that's going to offset with railroad retirement? No double dipping allow.

So you got to let them know about Social Security. Because if you get both checks, they're going to come back for it, and then there's going to be penalties and stuff. So you don't want that. State offset, did you spend time working in a state position that perhaps didn't pay into Social Security? So that GPO government and pension offset, have to do that. Military service, very, very important also, because you do get credit for military service if you're employed with the railroad at the time of the military service. Proof of marriage, spousal annuity, very big. So they got to check that, so that marriage certificate. And then the direct deposit info. They don't send out checks. Everything's electronically through. So you got to get that direct deposit info.

So that's what you're going to need right there. All right. And then how do you get it? Well, you got to stop working. So you stop working, then you're going to get your railroad retirement annuity. And then when do you get paid? It's within 35 days of the start date. So if you stop at the beginning of year, January 1st, is the first day, you figure you get paid by close to the end of the month, beginning of February. So this is just the overview on how to get your railroad retirement annuity. Useful, like I say, the Railroad Retirement Board will give you a lot more information than this. But I figured this is a good little primer for those to understand how the process is going to work.

So I hope you found this helpful reach out to me, if you have any questions. Subscribe my YouTube channel. That's great, and click on the notifications, get the latest video out there. 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.