Puerto Rico Retirement Credit for Military Service

Article 4E of Ley 203-2007 lets a veteran convert military time into Puerto Rico government retirement credit, and the arithmetic is more favourable than it first appears. The right. Any veteran who enters the service of the Commonwealth, its agencies or instrumentalities, public or quasi-public corporations, or municipal governments for the first time, and becomes a participating member of any government retirement system or fund, has the right, while a participant and at any time they request it, to have credited for retirement purposes all the time spent in active service in the armed forces, and all the time spent studying on courses paid for wholly or partly with funds provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It covers active service before the Act came into force. The price. The veteran pays the corresponding contributions plus simple interest at six percent a year, computed on whichever salary is lower: the one earned on entering government service, or the one received on entering active service in the armed forces, or the one at the date of discharge. Interest runs from when the creditable uncontributed services were rendered until full payment, or until the date the Administrator of the relevant retirement system grants a payment plan. Choosing the lower of those salaries is the favourable part. A veteran who served young at a low military wage and later entered government service at a higher salary pays on the military figure. The peacetime cap. Military service rendered at any time in peacetime is limited to five years, and for that service the veteran pays the individual contribution, the employer contribution and six percent simple interest, on the same lower-salary basis, with interest computed from when the peacetime service was rendered. So wartime service is uncapped and cheaper, peacetime service is capped at five years and costs the employer share as well. Study time. A veteran government employee who takes up a study plan on unpaid leave has the right to have the time spent in those studies credited for retirement, where the veteran was in active service during that time and the studies were paid for by the service. The agency that granted the leave contributes the employer share and the veteran contributes their own, and the statute makes it mandatory that the veteran be given payment facilities under the retirement law in force. Activation while employed. Agencies, dependencies, public corporations, municipalities and any other public body must cover the employer contributions to the retirement plan the employee was contributing to when active military service began, up to a maximum of five years. The employee is responsible for their own individual contributions for the period of activation, if any, on returning to work, and is entitled to be offered a payment plan. The private sector obligation is stronger. Private employers "sufragarán las aportaciones patronales y las aportaciones individuales" to the retirement plan the employee was entitled to, where the employee was called to active military service and entered it. Both shares, not just the employer's. Two clauses remove an objection that gets raised. Subsection (c): a veteran who receives disability compensation from the Government of the United States is not barred from taking up the benefits of this law. Subsection (f) repeats it for a veteran receiving a disability pension. Federal disability money does not disqualify you from buying Puerto Rico retirement credit. Puerto Rico's government retirement systems have been substantially restructured in recent years, so confirm with the administrator of the system you are in how this article is currently applied and what a payment plan looks like before counting on a figure.