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Congressional Relations

Tool for Estimating Effect of Transition
from COLA to Locality Pay

To see how this legislation might affect you, you can enter your salary, COLA rate, and locality in the form below.

NOTE: This calculator is a tool you can use to help estimate your future pay and retirement benefits under the draft legislation; there is no guarantee that you will receive these amounts. The accuracy of the benefit projection will depend on how closely the data you enter matches your actual base pay and tax data in the future. The actual benefits that you receive when you retire must be calculated under the various provisions of 5 U.S.C. chapter 83. The calculator does not account for maximum limitations on pay.

COLA Program Continues

		Year
		2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Base Salary
COLA
Locality Pay
Total Pay
Estimated Increase in Total Pay over Current COLA Program
Taxable/ Retirment Creditable (Base + Locality Pay
Biweekly Pay net of Deductions fro Federal taxes, Medicare & Retirement	CSRS
	FERS
Net Increase in biweekly Pay From Prior Year	CSRS
Net Increase in biweekly Pay From Prior Year	FERS
High 3 Average for Retirement

Transition From COLA To Locality Pay

		Year
		2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Base Salary
COLA
Locality Pay
Total Pay
Estimated Increase in Total Pay over Current COLA Program
Taxable/ Retirment Creditable (Base + Locality Pay
Biweekly Pay net of Deductions fro Federal taxes, Medicare & Retirement	CSRS
	FERS
Net Increase in biweekly Pay From Prior Year	CSRS
Net Increase in biweekly Pay From Prior Year	FERS
High 3 Average for Retirement

Underlying Assumptions and Constraints

Federal incomet tax estimates based on single employee, no dependents, standard deduction,, and 2006 tax rates.
Annual Base Schedule Increase is 2.5%
Annual Increase in Locality Pay is 1%
COLA Offset Factor is 85%
7 year phase in period.
2008 Locality Pay is set to 12.64%, (2007 RUS Rate)
2006 Ceiling on Income Taxable for Social Security
Annual Increase in Income Taxable for Social Security is $3,000 (the average of the last 7 years).

This page can be found on the web at the following url: http://www.opm.gov/news_events/congress/proposals/COLA-TransitionEstimator.asp