The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) asked Congress last month to suspend the requirement that retirees age 72 and older take distributions from retirement savings accounts such as the Thrift Savings Plan.
“I respectfully urge you to support suspending required minimum distributions (RMDs) on retirement accounts for calendar year 2022,” NARFE National President Ken Thomas wrote in a letter to Congress on July 8. “Our nation’s retirees are facing the brunt of the economic downturn and suspending RMDs would provide real relief for those living on fixed incomes.”
My Federal Retirement
If, in fact, “Our nation’s retirees are facing the brunt of the economic downturn and suspending RMDs would provide real relief for those living on fixed incomes.” how does not receiving money help?
How can people struggling on a fixed income afford not to take a distribution from their retirement funds?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I don’t know when the term “fixed income” was coined or by whom. People who should know better (CNBC reporters, financial advisors quoted in the media) continue to promote it. It’s simply not true. And comparing it to a worker in the labor force? Those workers often go years without a raise while retirees receive COLA. I suppose the truth is retirees for the most part live on less than what they made while working , but expenses are usually lower too and most retirees do just fine. But lobby groups and others with a hidden agenda prefer the scary phrase “fixed income”
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My pension is fixed. I’ll never get an increase in my monthly amount. In fact, the survivor will get a decrease in the way I accepted the payout.
However, you are correct when I start collecting social security, I will get COLAs for social security.
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How about this: don’t make me reduce the value of my investment account in a down market so that it affects my distributions in future years .
Not what he said but maybe what he meant.
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Federal employees get annual COLA with their pensions so it’s laughable that they are on a ” fixed income”. They obviously are living well on their pensions if they don’t need RMD money. If they eliminate RMDs for govt employees they should eliminate them for the rest of us.
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The federal retirees have good pensions as well as the TSP plan where some have amassed a nice sum over the years. Probably the group with the larger RMD would like a break from taxes for a year or so.
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They want a permanant break, not for a year or so.
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Asking for this calendar year is the first step to removing it entirely .
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Controlling when you take distributions may save money on taxes if you can defer to a better tax year for the individual.
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Possibly, but the stated reason is for relief from living on a fixed income – which they don’t do either.
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Yeah, but how does not getting any money provide relief from living on a fixed income?
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The real answer is not getting any money in a RMD does not help these poor struggling retirees. It does get the attention of Congress members who seize any excuse to help the poor strugglers whether it makes sense or not. That’s the people the head of NARFE has to go to. He/she will just push the same old buttons.
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