Veteran retro pay

[rwskitch]

...Good morning brothers and sisters simple question, any of you know of accountants familiar with calculating retro pay to verify Regional Office calculations for retro back pay owed to a veteran with several disabilities in the equation in the Pinellas County, Florida area ???

Edited September 22, 2017 by rwskitch
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[Vync]

I found a retro calculator online at https://www.hillandponton.com/va-retro-disability-calculator/, but I am not certain how accurate it may be. When I verified my retro, I did mine by hand. It was a lot of work.

[Buck52]

If your clear on the EED and know all the percentages of the disability's  just look up the pay rate for all the different disability's and the Award date and figure them that way go from the Award Date to the present

  do each disability separate  and you should be pretty close.

Now what makes it hard is if any of these disability's have been paid monthly and  an increase is involved  then Adjustments must be figured in and subtracted from what has been paid and the new percentage figured in

its complicated with Adjustments.

 

 

[rwskitch]

...are the calculations for each month ran as if it's what the veteran is to be paid that month for both disabilities combined w/VA math with that percentage forward and after the time frame the 3rd one is awarded combine the 3 disabilities into one with VA math again and proceed to present date to establish the total  retro pay amount owed or does the VA just pay the veteran the amount for the current disability percentage awarded times the months it took to be granted ???

23 hours ago, Vync said:

I found a retro calculator online at https://www.hillandponton.com/va-retro-disability-calculator/, but I am not certain how accurate it may be. When I verified my retro, I did mine by hand. It was a lot of work.

 

22 hours ago, Buck52 said:

If your clear on the EED and know all the percentages of the disability's  just look up the pay rate for all the different disability's and the Award date and figure them that way go from the Award Date to the present

  do each disability separate  and you should be pretty close.

Now what makes it hard is if any of these disability's have been paid monthly and  an increase is involved  then Adjustments must be figured in and subtracted from what has been paid and the new percentage figured in

its complicated with Adjustments.

 

 

 

[Buck52]

You need to know what each of the disability's percentages are? and the dates awarded.

Look on e benefits ''Disability's'' and it should show the percentages  or check the Award letter and the dates.

Also  you need to go by the historic percentages at that time the rating was given that is called Historic Percentages.

The percentage's change and also COLA is Added in but lately we have not had a COLA lately.

check these historic rates  from 1974  to 2004..if its after that I'll see if I can find the present rates.

https://www.hadit.com/vaclaimslibrary/compensation/comprateshistorical.htm

Edited September 23, 2017 by Buck52

[Buck52]

These rates above do not include any special monthly compensation or  special pay rates.

it gets complicated with the adjustments if you have to figure  years and years of retro?

..its best to check with a veteran service rep that has experience with retro payments...just ask them if they can help you and also make sure they have the experience to do so?    so you won't get cheated out of the retro or get to much...if you get to much you will have to pay every penny back to the VA.

[broncovet]

You can not just use a single month and multiply it by the number of months, unfortunately.  

You can use the calculator in the link above, they usually work well or try to do it yourself.  

Remember, your back pay is at the "old" rate, you can not use the current rate and multipy it by the number of months, because VA doesnt pay us interest.  

So, to figure it out, look on the chart and add on the number of dependents, if applicable.  Then subtract the monies already received.  Do that over for each month.  Often you can do a year and sometime several years because we got "zero" percent cola for 3 years during the Obama administration.  That is, it did not change at all from the previous year.