Thread: 27 Pay periods in 2012?

Originally Posted by alevin

Here's my confusion. last year I tried to max out regular tsp for the first time ever, not including catchups. I did calculations mid year. somehow I came up a few $ short on hitting the 16500 mark, even though was basing on 26 pp.

This year, I planned to max out from the get go, based on 26 pp. so I could get full match and do the catchup too. am I going to end up not getting the full match in pp 27 if I don't recalculate amount per pp between now and pp 27? I'm talking cy2011 contributions.

and where is your spreadsheet again, Frixxxx?

I am being told to base it on 26 PAY DAYS....So to max $17,000 / 26 = $653.846
TSP only allows "whole number" elections. $653 * 26 = $16,978 leaving you $22 short....
I'd pick a payperiod and over fill the $22 or $675, and then revert to $653 to get the $17,000 for the year.

For spreadsheet:

Link

thanks Frixxxx, that helps.

I also found this-which helps even more about WHEN to make changes in contribs effective for cy 2012 to make sure get full match and full max contributions without having to make mid-year recalculations. Info at the link also provides info helps to make sure don't screw up maxing out contribs (with full match) for cy2011, if need to adjust contribs between now and then. the article gave me exactly the info I needed for transitioning between 2011 and 2012 timing wise for changing contribs.

http://es-es.facebook.com/notes/usag...50377786694545

Originally Posted by alevin

thanks Frixxxx, that helps.

I also found this-which helps even more about WHEN to make changes in contribs effective for cy 2012 to make sure get full match and full max contributions without having to make mid-year recalculations. Info at the link also provides info helps to make sure don't screw up maxing out contribs (with full match) for cy2011, if need to adjust contribs between now and then. the article gave me exactly the info I needed for transitioning between 2011 and 2012 timing wise for changing contribs.

http://es-es.facebook.com/notes/usag...50377786694545

Great Find, Thanks Alevin!

sure glad we've been having this conversation. just discovered I goofed up at start of year transitioning between trying to max out 2010 (mid-year increase to get to the max) and then start max and 50+ catchups for 2011.

If I hadn't gone in and figured it out today, I'd have contributed too much regular tsp for this year one pp too early and wouldn't have gotten the match for the last pp. so had to reduce contribs for the last 2 pp this year. just did that. Also figured out I was going to bbe undercontributing catchup contribs for this year, due to not starting those in the right pp at start of year. had to bump up my catchups these last 2 pp to get full 5500 catchup put in for this year. whew! talk about under the wire.

"Divide $17,000 by 27 and you get $629.62. Multiply that by 26 and you get $16,370. That's pretty close to what the limit has been up to now, and you'll be guaranteed to get full matching."


And guaranteed not to get the full 17,000. That extra 500-600 is serious business to some of us!

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Someone on page 1 was calculating pay dates based on Friday. We're (USACE civilian) paid on Thursdays, so be careful with general answers here. I think it still works out to 26 pay dates in my case though.

Originally Posted by azanon

Someone on page 1 was calculating pay dates based on Friday. We're (USACE civilian) paid on Thursdays, so be careful with general answers here. I think it still works out to 26 pay dates in my case though.

Taxable income is what you project on your contributions. The 27th PP wil be paid in 2013...That means tax implications are applied to 2013. So, it is still 26 Pay Dates.

Everyone seems to be submitting good information, though confusing at times due to the sequence of the posts.

The pay periods seem to vary among the different agencies. It does get confusing with leave year, pay periods, calendar (tax) year and fiscal year. All are different and if you get time off awards for anything that year end may also be different.

The best way I have found is to look at the pay date on the last several Civilian Leave and Earning Statements. Mine is in block 2. Yours may be in a different block as I am told there is no standard form, it depends on your agency.

This pay date should always be the same day of the week, unless it is a federal holiday. Once you have the pay date, simply project out every two weeks and count the number of paydays in 2012. My count comes out to 26. It does not matter how many periods your agency has decreed. If the pay date is in 2012, that's the contribution that counts as far as IRS is concerned.

Bottom line is figure out when the first pay date in 2012 is and count forward every two weeks from that date.

The maxing out of your TSP contributions is all set up for you automatically thru EmployeeExpress.
If you log into employee express, then click the TSP link, it will bring you to the following page I pasted below. This year you can even use an effective date, which for my agency is 12/18. Also, it automatically rounds up the 26th deduction, thus maxing it out. employee express seems to be one federal website that has it's act together really works well. Don't get me started on the slew of other failed websites I must muddle thru....

I hope this clears some things up....

Thrift Savings Plan Change

You can enter either a percentage OR enter a whole dollar amount of your basic pay that you wish to contribute per pay period by selecting the appropriate block on the screen. Your payroll dollar amount cannot exceed the maximum contribution amount allowed. The maximum allowed is based on your total salary. You should not use both a paper form TSP-1 and Employee Express to make TSP elections. The election you make through Employee Express will only affect your future contributions, not your past contributions. You can start, change or stop your contributions at any time. You may use Employee Express to change the amount or percent of payroll deduction for contributing to TSP. FERS refers to the Federal Employees' Retirement System, the Foreign Service Pension System, and other equivalent Government retirement plans. There is an annual limit on TSP contributions established by the IRS. The current annual limit appears below. If you reach the IRS limit on TSP contributions before the end of the year, your contributions will stop and you will lose any further agency matching contributions. If you are a new or rehired employee who has never had a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account, your contributions will be invested in the Government Securities Investment (G) Fund, until you request a contribution allocation through TSP. If you are a rehired employee who has previously had a Thrift Savings Plan account, your contributions will be invested according to your last contribution allocation on file with the TSP until you request a different contribution allocation through TSP. Please note: The exact TSP deduction may not equal the percentage specified due to other mandatory payroll deductions. TSP Stop Actions are immediately effective at the end of the current pay period.

2012 Limit for TSP Contributions $17,000

Example to follow for deducting equal payments: Effective Date: December 18, 2011 Number of Pay Periods in tax year: 26 Pay Period Deduction Amount: $654 (i.e. $17,000/26 = $654 rounded up) The 26th payment will round to $650 to ensure the deduction amount does not exceed the limit for the year. This will ensure you will reach the annual limit on the last pay period of the tax year and continue to receive applicable agency contributions.

CORRECTION: I said deduction #26 rounds up....I meant it rounds down so you don't loose the matching 5% on last check. And again, this is all done automatically thru employee express....You will end up with 25 deductions at $654 = $16,350 and the 26th deduction will be $650 bringing the total to $17,000, thus maxing out your 5% agency matching. Employee Express is a great site.

For those of you trying to manage to max out your TSP contributions, I have a helpful piece of info: If you contribute slightly too much per pay period, you won't go OVER the max allowed, because the TSP or payroll folks are nice enough to make sure you don't overcontribute for the year. For example, in 2011 the max is $16,500. That equates to $634.61 per pay period. As has already been pointed out, you can only do round numbers, no decimals. For the last couple of years, I've had mine set at $635 per pay period, which works out to $16,510, or $10 over the allowed per year. However, for the last paycheck of the year, they automatically fix it so that only $625 comes out, making my yearly contribution EXACTLY $16,500.00. I found this out by accident, as I was originally trying to "fix" my deduction for 1 pay period each year, but forgot to get it done in time for 2010. I expected that I might have to figure out how to withdraw the $10, plus pay taxes/penalties/etc, but no worries, as they took care of it for me!

Originally Posted by luckylanna

.......However, for the last paycheck of the year, they automatically fix it so that only $625 comes out, making my yearly contribution EXACTLY $16,500.00. I found this out by accident, as I was originally trying to "fix" my deduction for 1 pay period each year, but forgot to get it done in time for 2010. I expected that I might have to figure out how to withdraw the $10, plus pay taxes/penalties/etc, but no worries, as they took care of it for me!

I'll check with my agency to see if they do the same thing, welcome to the boards and thanks for sharing, LL!