Larry,

I am a retired police officer and paid social security taxes all 20 plus years I worked for the Hillsboro Police Department. Will my pension from Oregon PERS be effected my Social Security benefits?

Thank you!
Roger

Hi Roger,

I'm not sure whether you mean that you paid Social Security taxes on your earnings as a police officer, or if you mean that you worked other jobs on which you paid Social Security taxes. Nor am I familiar with the Oregon PERS plan.

That said, if you paid Social Security taxes on all of the earnings on which your Oregon PERS pension is based, then it wouldn't affect your Social Security benefits. However, if some or all of the earnings on which your Oregon PERS pension is based were exempt from Social Security taxes, then your Social Security retirement benefit rate will likely be lower due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). WEP can cause a less generous computational formula to be used to calculate Social Security retirement rates for people who are receiving a pension based on their work that was exempt from Social Security taxes. For more information on WEP and its exceptions, refer to this Social Security pamphlet: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf.

Our maximization software is fully programmed to handle cases involving WEP, so you may want to use it to do your Social Security planning.

Best, Jerry