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Updates

What is changing in FERSCalc.

A running history of updates to the FERSCalc site and calculator.

State-tax coverage classification and honesty fixes

  • Each state is now classified by how much of its rules the model attempts (detailed, approximate, or no income tax), derived from the documented per-state simplifications.
  • The "50 states + DC" coverage counts across the app are now checked against a single source of truth, so the public page, the calculator dropdown, and the engine can no longer disagree.
  • Disclosed that Maryland’s county tax is the one local tax the model includes (all other local income taxes remain excluded); the calculation is unchanged.

Medicare Part B enrollment choice and IRMAA timing

  • Medicare Part B is now an enrollment choice per person, not automatic — you can opt out, and opting out charges no Part B premium.
  • The year you turn 65 is now prorated from your coverage effective month (a July start charges 6 months, not 12), instead of a full year.
  • The income-based IRMAA surcharge now uses your income and filing status from two years prior (the CMS lookback); the first two projection years, where that income predates the projection, are disclosed as using the earliest modeled year as a proxy.
  • Disclosed the boundaries: SSA-44 life-changing-event reductions and Part D IRMAA are not modeled.

FEHB modeled as a household enrollment

  • FEHB is now a single household enrollment held by one person: a Person B-only plan is charged (previously ignored), and a household is charged once — never a premium per person.
  • You can record the coverage tier and attest whether the 5-year continuous-enrollment rule is met; leaving it unknown discloses the eligibility as unverified rather than assuming you qualify.
  • The projection warns when the enrollee is a deferred retiree (generally ineligible to continue FEHB) and when both people entered FEHB (so you can pick which plan covers the household).
  • The household plan’s premium now stops at the enrollee’s month of death; a surviving spouse’s continued FEHB and a coverage-tier downgrade after a covered dependent’s death remain disclosed as not modeled.

Survivor elections, filing status, and basis

  • A single household (no living spouse) now has no FERS survivor reduction by default; a survivor election is applied only when an eligible spouse exists.
  • The survivor-spending factor now scales only voluntary TSP withdrawals — it no longer changes your pension or Social Security income.
  • Qualifying Surviving Spouse filing status now requires you to attest a dependent child in the home (IRS Pub 501); without it, the survivor files single after the year of death instead of getting the 2-year joint-rate window.
  • The decedent’s FERS contribution basis and the survivor’s continued cost recovery now share one pool, so the entered basis is never recovered twice across the death boundary.
  • The decedent’s TSP is modeled as a spousal rollover into the survivor’s account; separate inherited-account treatment and inherited RMDs are disclosed as not modeled.
  • Existing saved scenarios recompute on next load: a single household’s pension is no longer reduced for a survivor, and a modeled death now files single after the year of death unless you check the new Qualifying Surviving Spouse box.

Date-accurate death events

  • A death is now modeled as a dated event with one within-year timing convention across cash flow, tax, premiums, and account ownership, instead of a start-of-year on/off switch.
  • A deceased person’s FEHB and Medicare premiums now stop at the death month (previously they continued for the whole death year and every year after), and their salary and Social Security are prorated to the months before death rather than zeroed for the whole year.
  • Survivor Social Security in the death year is now a within-year dual-entitlement top-up (the survivor keeps their own benefit and adds only the survivor-benefit excess for post-death months), consistent with the survivor pension and never summing two full benefits.

Social Security claim timing and earnings test

  • The projected benefit now uses your entered age-62 and age-70 estimates (interpolated with the FRA estimate), not just the FRA amount, and the in-app preview uses the same calculation so it matches the projection.
  • Social Security now begins at your claim age independently of your federal retirement date, so you can model claiming while still working.
  • Added the Social Security retirement earnings test for a claimant who is still earning wages before Full Retirement Age, including the higher $1-for-$3 limit in the year FRA is reached; the withheld amount is reported.
  • Documented the modeling boundaries: whole-year claim ages, no post-FRA restoration of withheld months, and a simplified survivor-benefit reduction.

FERS supplement earnings-test timing and civilian service

  • The supplement earnings test now reduces the benefit based on the prior year’s post-retirement wages, applied the year after the earnings year, so the first supplement year is never reduced.
  • Special-category (6C) retirees — law enforcement, firefighter, air traffic control — are now exempt from the earnings test until they reach their minimum retirement age.
  • The supplement’s service factor now uses FERS civilian service only: military bought-back time counts toward the pension but no longer inflates the supplement, and part-time civilian service is counted at full calendar time per OPM Chapter 51.

Roth qualification and IRMAA-conversion corrections

  • A designated Roth TSP distribution is now treated as nonqualified (earnings taxable) when the first Roth contribution year is unknown, instead of optimistically assuming it is qualified. Affected years are flagged in the Taxes tab and CSV export.
  • Clarified that the entered Roth year is the TSP plan’s own five-year clock; Roth IRA accounts have a separate clock the calculator does not model.
  • IRMAA-aware Roth conversion and threshold-aware withdrawal guardrails now compare a year’s income against the IRMAA threshold table for the premium year it governs (two years later), matching the CMS two-year MAGI lookback.

TSP RMD and early-distribution audit

  • Added a dated Traditional TSP RMD audit with the prior-year balance, IRS Uniform Lifetime Table divisor, required amount, modeled payment, shortfall, and first-payment timing choice.
  • Added a separately shown 10% federal early-distribution additional-tax estimate for eligible taxable Traditional TSP cash distributions, with explicit user attestations for SEPP, total and permanent disability, and qualified public-safety treatment.
  • Added disclosures for unmodeled Roth in-plan-rollover recapture, inherited-balance provenance after a modeled spousal merge, generic nonfederal accounts, sole-younger-spouse Table II treatment, and other statutory exceptions.

FERS service record and annuity-start correction

  • Added optional detailed FERS service periods for breaks, civilian or military service, actual/full-time part-time hours, actual 6C coverage, and deposit/redeposit status.
  • FERS eligibility and pension amounts now freeze service at separation, enforce five-year civilian-service vesting, apply OPM’s day-before-birthday retirement-age convention, use OPM-style service and sick-leave timing, and begin supported immediate annuities on the first day of the next month.
  • MRA+10 and deferred paths now show supported first-of-month commencement choices and apply the permanent full-month age reduction from the selected start date.

Current-to-retirement timeline correction

  • Future-retirement projections now accumulate salary, TSP contributions, and investment returns from the current calendar-year valuation point through each person’s retirement date.
  • 4% and fixed-annuity strategies now start from the accumulated retirement-date TSP balance instead of the balance entered today.

Annual rule provenance gate

  • Added a source, effective-year, reviewer, and renewal registry for annual calculator rule surfaces.
  • Production builds now stop for missing source metadata, overdue annual reviews, or stale exact-year tables; source cataloging is not presented as independent fixture certification.

Planning limitations and rule-source disclosures

  • Added a prominent calculator limitation notice for the known timeline, rule-year, income-program, survivor, health, state, and Monte Carlo gaps.
  • Printable retirement reports now repeat those planning limitations so saved PDFs and paper copies retain the decision-critical disclosure.
  • Renamed the Monte Carlo display as a TSP balance-survival metric and clarified that it does not measure spending sufficiency or certify retirement readiness.
  • Added official source and effective-year context to Assumptions & Coverage, and corrected stale Social Security and SRS guidance.

New blog post: FERS survivor benefit elections

  • Published a guide on spouse survivor benefit choices, pension reductions, FEHB considerations, and surviving-spouse cash-flow planning.

Tightened FERS supplement eligibility and assumptions

  • The FERS Special Retirement Supplement is now automatically excluded for MRA+10, deferred, not-vested, non-federal, and age-62+ retirement paths.
  • The supplement service fraction now uses FERS service rounded to the nearest whole year, capped at 40, matching OPM Chapter 51.
  • The SRS earnings test now uses the exact known exempt amounts for 2025 and 2026 before projecting future unknown limits.

Corrected FERS pension, supplement, TSP, and Monte Carlo rules

  • Standard FERS pension COLAs now wait until age 62 unless special-category rules apply.
  • FERS Special Retirement Supplement amounts now stay flat before age 62 and can be reduced by modeled post-retirement earned income.
  • Pre-retirement TSP employee contributions now respect statutory elective-deferral and catch-up limits, and agency matching now uses the capped effective contribution rate.
  • Monte Carlo stress testing now works when Person B is the only federal retiree.

Added visible update history

  • New /updates page with a running changelog of site and calculator changes.
  • Footer shows the last-updated date and links to the changelog.

Fixed several FERS calculation edge cases

  • Corrected pension, TSP, and tax calculations in reported scenarios.

Simplified the public site navigation

  • Streamlined menus, landing page, and field guide for easier browsing.

Revamped the public homepage

  • Refreshed the homepage for first-time visitors.

New blog post: unused sick leave under FERS

  • Published a guide on how unused sick leave affects pension calculation.

New blog post and projection accuracy

  • Added FEHB 5-year rule guide.
  • Updated Medicare surcharge projections to use annual CMS tables.
  • Fixed pre-retirement salary growth so it correctly projects High-3 salary.

New blog post and results improvements

  • Added FERS supplement earnings-test guide.
  • Fixed FICA, AGI, and RMD calculation accuracy.
  • Added break-even trend curve and Monte Carlo uncertainty bands.
  • Added clearer readiness indicators and recommendations on the Results page.

New blog post: OPM retirement backlog

  • Published a guide on what the OPM backlog means for new retirees.

Accuracy and trust improvements

  • Fixed Georgia retirement-income exclusion, Social Security wage-base indexing, and tax-exempt-interest handling.
  • Added Qualifying Surviving Spouse filing-status support.
  • Updated the Assumptions & Coverage page.

Historical stress testing

  • Added historical retirement scenario replay for stress testing.

Clarified the free pricing posture

  • Updated pricing and messaging to make the free-by-intent posture explicit.

Shareable scenarios and contextual help

  • Added shareable scenario URLs via the Share button.
  • Added contextual ? field help and the /field-guide reference page.

Refined state tax modeling

  • Improved state tax calculations with more detailed rules for specific states.
  • Published the Assumptions & Coverage page.

Initial FERSCalc release

  • FERS retirement calculator with pension, TSP, Social Security, and FEHB projections.
  • State income tax modeling, Monte Carlo TSP stress testing, scenario comparison, and Person B household support.

Ready to run your own numbers?

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FERSCalc

A free, local-first planning tool for comparing federal retirement timing and income.

FERSCalc helps you pressure-test scenarios before you make a decision. It is not affiliated with OPM or any federal agency, and it does not replace official benefit estimates or professional advice.

A Makefield Works project

Expectations

  • Calculator data stays in your browser unless you export it or share a link.
  • State income tax is modeled for all 50 states and DC.
  • Results depend on your inputs and planning assumptions.

© 2026 FERSCalc. All rights reserved.

Last updated July 22, 2026

Confirm final decisions with official sources and qualified advisors.