I am requesting that your newspaper publish this letter pointing out that retirees should be protected from pension overpayment recoupment. When retirees receive their first pension check, they trust the amount shown on the check will be what they should receive monthly.
Far too often, pension plan sponsors later find an error in the pension payment calculation and force retirees to pay back thousands of dollars and suffer a large cut in benefits as well.
Employee Retirement Income Security Act and Department of Treasury guidance requires plan sponsors to follow vague rules in deciding a dollar amount and reasonable time required to recoup overpayments. There is a need for a more equitable approach to recouping pension overpayments.
The National Retiree Legislative Network has proposed to indemnify individual plan participants from the requirement to fund overpayments with a more equitable remedy that would instruct actuaries to account for recoupment as a plan funding risk and require a very small adjustments to plan actuarial calculations. Currently, actuarial adjustments are already used to cover other miscalculation errors.
Request more information on this issue at contact@nrln.org or call toll-free 866-360-7197.
Dino Costas
Lewes
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to viewpoints@capegazette.com. All letters are considered at the discretion of the newsroom and published as space allows. Due to the large volume of submissions, we cannot acknowledge receipt of each submission. Letters must include a phone number and address for verification. Keep letters to 400 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content or length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Letters should focus on local issues, not national topics or personalities. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days regarding a particular topic. Authors may submit a second letter within that time period if it pertains to a different issue. Letters may not be critical of personalities or specific businesses. Criticism of public figures is permissible. Endorsement letters for political candidates are no longer accepted. Letters must be the author’s original work, and may not be generated by artificial intelligence tools. Templates, form letters and letters containing language similar to other submissions will not be published.
