IRS aims at public worker pensions

Nevada public employees are experiencing a low-grade fever over Internal Revenue Service plans to redefine what constitutes a “normal retirement age” for those in non-Social Security retirement plans such as Nevada’s Public Employees Retirement System.

Basically, the IRS is looking at a fixed age such as the Social Security System uses instead of the age at which an employee completes a certain number of years of service. Thus, someone who has completed 30 years of service as a state worker at age 57 would not be considered of “normal retirement age.” The Social Security System considers people from 65 to 67 to be of “normal retirement age,” depending on when they entered the system. Whether the IRS has the authority to negate “service-based retirement eligibility” in non-federal plans is unclear, but it is certain to generate major litigation. The National Council on Teacher Retirement has called on the IRS to delay its plan indefinitely.