Rollover to IRA

[JD1964]

I’ve done several rollovers from tsp so I’m familiar with the process. I did it online in the past without problems. However, this morning I tried to do a direct rollover to a traditional ira and the tsp website would only treat it like a cash withdrawal and was going to withhold 20% tax. I tried again repeatedly even on different devices and the result was the same. I had done this previously without any withholding. Anyone know what the glitch might be?

Thanks, John D

 

[tsptalk]

Hi John. Sounds like you know more than most on this. You said it was a direct rollover, but it sounds like they are treating it as an indirect rollover. That's the only thing I can think of.

 

[JD1964]

Exactly! The process is claiming that I’m selecting cash payment but I’m not. It’s not even giving me a choice. It’s just defaulting to cash payment and bypassing my election of direct rollover. Weird. I’m going to call Thriftline

 

[JD1964]

Ok I called Thriftline and they walked me through on the website. I was selecting the wrong option on one of the pages. My bad. Hopefully I’ll remember next time.

 

[TangoMike]

JD--I'm thinking bout moving my tsp balance to a 10yr indexed annuity ira (this would be custodian to custodian) so the process is straight forward? My fear is that tsp would screw it up and send me the check and pull 20% taxes out. It shouldn't be news to anyone that the gov't is trying to get their hands on the massive amount in tsp, i wouldn't be a bit surprise if it was done on purpose.