What's New
Pre-tax
treatment of FEHB and FLTCIP premiums for Retired Public Safety Officers
A
recently passed law, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), now allows
pre-tax payment of premiums for both the Federal Employees Health
Benefits (FEHB)
Program and the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP) for a small
subset of Federal annuitants.
Although most Executive Branch Federal employees
participating in the FEHB Program are eligible to have FEHB premiums withheld
from pay prior to being taxed, under Internal Revenue rules, this pre-tax
“premium conversion” benefit is generally not available to Federal
annuitants.
Section 845 of the PPA added a provision to the Internal
Revenue Code, effective
January 1, 2007
. New Internal Revenue Code section
402(l) allows a limited premium conversion tax advantage for certain annuitants
who are retired public safety officers. They
can now exclude from their gross income distributions from eligible retirement
plans that are directly used to pay qualified health insurance premiums and/or
long term care insurance premiums. The
annual maximum exclusion is $3,000.
The
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has determined that the Civil Service
Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) are
eligible retirement plans under section 845 of the PPA.
Retired public safety officers are deemed to have made a premium
conversion election for this purpose. As
a result, retired public safety officers whose CSRS or FERS annuity payments
include a direct premium payment to a health insurance carrier or long term care
insurance carrier may self-identify eligibility for, and self-report, the tax
exclusion to the Internal Revenue Service.
Department of Treasury Releases "Right-to-Carry"
Guidelines
The Department of Treasury has issued final
guidelines to provide Retired Internal Revenue Service Criminal
Investigators (IRS CI) Special Agents specific instructions to apply for Retired
Law Enforcement Credentials in accordance with the Law Enforcement Safety Officers Act.
The application, conditions for use and attestation
must be completed to receive the credentials.
FCIA Releases Detailed Response to Concept Paper on Proposed Federal Law
Enforcement Personnel System
FCIA's response to the Concept Paper was
discussed with the senior staff of the House Subcommittee on the Federal
Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee on December 7. FCIA's
Washington Rep, Don Baldwin, reviewed FCIAs comments with the staff and learned
that the Subcommittee will introduce legislation in January to propose changes
to benefits for federal law enforcement personnel. FCIA's national
president, Richard Zehme and the other national officers met in November in
Chicago to prepare the FCIA's response.
Congress Releases Concept Paper on Federal Law Enforcement Personnel
System
On October 26, Congress released its plan to create a federal law enforcement
pay system with two goals: (1) to offer 21st century recruitment, hiring and
retention tools for the federal law enforcement community and (2) to bring
common-sense parity to a disparate system that has fractured over time. A
copy of the Concept Paper is available at Concept Paper.pdf
Federal
Criminal Investigators Association
