Will PERS help individual members with possible tax issues associated with the overpayment and potential tax consequences and penalties associated with repayments?
A. Although the agency is not qualified to give individual tax advice, we can provide some general information about how the benefit payments have been and will be reported to the state and federal government for taxation purposes. Under Revenue Ruling 2002-84, the effect of actuarially reducing future benefits is that PERS will report what the agency actually pays the recipient under this method, not what the recipient would have received absent the adjustment. Similarly, for payments received prior to the adjustment, those are the amounts that the recipient actually received and should conform to the amounts reported as taxable. For actuarially reduced benefit payments after the adjustment date, therefore, PERS will report the taxable portion of the benefit the recipient actually receives so there should be no offset or deduction from what the recipient would have otherwise received but for the benefit adjustment and overpayment recovery. If the recipient instead repaid PERS in a lum
