Why does the FED GOV penalize its workers for retiring early?

why all the tax penalties why does the FED GOV treat those who have served them honerably like pieces of expendable meat? my dad pute in over 25 years with them and now there penalizing him for taking retirement due to chest pains and stress induced burn out he worked 18 hour days with 6 hour forced every other day working security<heavely armed> at a top secret facility where they test classified military weapons.

Public Comments

1. if you retire early, that means you're not paying taxes. its all about the money, baby
2. because most work so slow. the govment thinks they should have a longer life expectency.
3. Uh, if you are talking about a pension being reduced for someone who starts to collect it before normal retirement age, it's because of the extra years they are getting it. It's not just the feds - that's standard in non-government companies also. It isn't a penalty - it's evening out what they expect to get since they're getting it for longer than someone who waited later to retire.
4. What tax penalties for early retirement are you talking about? You're free to retire whenever you wish. It's just that if you have invested money in a qualified retirement plan you must generally wait until age 59 1/2 to withdraw the funds without penalty. HOWEVER there are other ways to access that money without penalty. For example if you take withdrawals of substantially equal payments for a period of 5 or more years and are age 55 or older there are no penalties for early withdrawal. The rules can vary a bit depending upon the type of qualified retirement plan but most folks are not aware of this fact. Also, if your goal is to retire early you should plan on the tax impact of that IN ADVANCE. If you don't want to touch your retirement plan then you should make other investments in non-tax preferenced vehicles that don't attract any penalties. That way you can tide yourself over until you reach age 59 1/2 or older and not worry about the penalties at all. The laws are all in place and you have to live by them BUT you can plan to work AROUND the laws and still come up on top in the end. Most folks don't plan to fail, but many folks fail to plan. When you do that, you have only yourself to blame.
5. if you withdraw funds from your 401(k) plan before you are 59 1/2, you must pay the 10 percent additional tax on early distributions from qualified retirement plans on any amounts that are not rolled into an IRA. However, there are some exceptions listed in Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business, and Publication 575, Pension and Annuity Income. You would not have to pay the 10 percent additional tax, for example, if you received the distribution after you left the company and you left the company during or after the calendar year in which you reached age 55 and your departure from the company qualifies as a separation from service. Tax Topic 412 and Tax Topic 558 are available for further guidance.
6. A federal employee can retire at 55 with 30 years of service, at 60 with 20 years or 62 with five years. If you are given an early out opportunity to retire before those normal ages your pension will be reduced by 1/6% per month for each month you are younger than 55. If you are approved for disability retirement you can retire without the reduction. There are no tax penalties on retirement income. If you take an early withdrawal from the Thrift Savings Plan--the federal employee version of a 401(k)--you are subject to the same rules as private sector employees.
7. All governments want to keep people down. Governments do want people to get ahead just want votes. I do not mind paying my fair share regarding taxes but I feel that all interest gain should be tax free. Also, I believe that if you are able to save money in various retirement plans, you should be able to get the Retirement Savings Credit regardless of your gross income. Right now, if a person makes more than $52,000 then you could not get that credit. I would think that the government would want more of their citizens to be more productive without taxing them to death.