more on Withdrawals

[prowler]

While reading through form TSP-70 (Request for Full Withdrawal), section III of that form pertains to Married FERS Participants. It says:
“If you are a married FERS participant and your account balance is more than $3,500, complete Section III. By law, your spouse is entitled to an annuity with a 50% survivor benefit, level payments, and no cash refund (i.e., TSP Annuity Option 3b).”
If my wife waives her right to that annuity in writing, and if I then elect to withdraw my TSP in dollar monthly payments, and if I then die – will my wife (as my primary beneficiary) receive 100% of the balance of my TSP account?

 

[Silverbird]

I'm a tad confused...if you withdraw all of your money from TSP, there is no money left in there to distribute. So are you talking about a partial withdraw or?

Withdraws (as opposed to loans) can only be done for very specific reasons, and can have nasty tax consequences. Not sure what you are trying to achieve.

If it helps, publications on the TSP can be found at http://www.tsp.gov
Select Civilian or Uniformed Forms and Publications
Then Select Publications
If you are Civilian, next pick Booklets (Uniformed have less options to select from)

 

[Frixxxx]

I'm a tad confused...if you withdraw all of your money from TSP, there is no money left in there to distribute.

They're taking monthly withdrawals, not emptying account. I'm not sure your spouse can waive rights on the account. I think it's a global protection so that spouse's can't "hide" the money during legal proceedings.

If she can waive her rights but she is the beneficiary of all accounts you hold, then yes, she gets the $$$$$.

 

[prowler]

Silverbird - Sorry for the confusing post. Sometimes I read and then RE-read something until it made no sense at all to me. This was one of those times.

The book says we can take our money from our TSP account in two ways:
(1) Partial Withdraw
(2) Full withdrawal
A. Single payment
B. Montly paments
C. Life Annuity
D. Mixed payment combo

The monthly pay option falls under the heading of "Full Withdraw". The question of the survivor benefit also pertains to monthly withdrawals from a FERS TSP account; before a FERS TSP participant can elect monthly payments he/she must give the spouse an option to waive annuity benefits or request annuity benefits.

Form TSP-70, Section III

 

[satin89]

i decided tp go the loan route... Thank you very much tho 4 the info...

 

[Harley69]

While reading through form TSP-70 (Request for Full Withdrawal), section III of that form pertains to Married FERS Participants. It says:
“If you are a married FERS participant and your account balance is more than $3,500, complete Section III. By law, your spouse is entitled to an annuity with a 50% survivor benefit, level payments, and no cash refund (i.e., TSP Annuity Option 3b).”
If my wife waives her right to that annuity in writing, and if I then elect to withdraw my TSP in dollar monthly payments, and if I then die – will my wife (as my primary beneficiary) receive 100% of the balance of my TSP account?

Your spouse has to waive her right to the prescribed annuity. If you set up monthly payments, and she is your named beneficiary, if anything happens to you (God forbid) she would still get the remaining balance in your account. Basically, that signature means that she knows what you are doing with your account, it don't waive any right to benefits. She wouldn't be able to continue monthly payments through the TSP though but she could transfer it directly to a traditional IRA and set them up there.