Letter
USCCB Letter to Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (2013)
Letter from USCCB General Counsel to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board regarding Interim Final Rule on Implementation of United States v. Windsor, October 21, 2013
On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we respectfully submit the following comments on the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board’s interim final rule on the implementation of United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013). 78 Fed. Reg. 57783 (Sept. 20, 2013).
The thrift savings plan (“TSP”) is a tax-deferred retirement savings plan for federal civilian employees and members of the uniformed services, similar to deferred compensation arrangements established for private-sector employees under section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. § 401(k).
Spouses of federal employees have certain rights under the TSP. Under the FERS retirement system, for example, a spouse must give his or her written consent to the withdrawal of funds from a TSP account, and a spouse is entitled to a joint life annuity with 50% survivor benefit unless he or she waives this right.
The TSP “has one existing choice-of-law provision pertaining to marriage. It is found in 5 CFR 1651.5(a), and says that the state law of the participant’s domicile will be used to determine whether a participant was married for purposes of distributing death benefits from his or her TSP account.” 78 Fed. Reg. at 57783 (emphasis added).
Under the interim final rule, however, “[t]he laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage was initially established will be used to determine whether a TSP participant is married.” Id. at 57784 (emphasis added). Thus, the interim final rule substitutes a place-of-celebration rule for a place-of-domicile rule in determining marital status.