Accumulate flt hrs or BAH/BAS/incentive pay?
 

Just did this a few months ago. I sold back a lot of leave, for my situation, I wanted the flight hours, so I flew almost until my last day, hence requiring selling back leave.

My finance office required these forms:
1)in house cover letter I signed with number of days selling.
2)AF Form 594 (change to BAH)
3)AF 1745 (change of address) - for purposes of sending W-2

At least for separation, my lump sum payout was BASE PAY ONLY X number of leave days....and yes, they deduct the 25% federal tax. As for retirees, there could be different allotment benefits.

It took 3 weeks to get the lump sum electronically deposited into the bank.

You may qualify for 6 months of medical coverage past your separation date under the TAMP

www.tricare.mil/TAMP/

I sold leave back many years ago when separating active duty. I didn't have a job at the time and very little was expected since I was a "short timer". It was a couple of months of base pay to throw in the bank to help out for the short term.

I'm not sure of the tax rate, but you would get a refund when you file your taxes anyway.

When you go on terminal leave, you get full pay (including flight pay).

Yes but you are still AD on terminal leave, so you have regular AD medical coverage for the duration of your leave. Your TAMP clock starts AFTER terminal leave ends.

If you need to fly up until the end to maximize airline eligibility, then it would make sense to sell it back. Otherwise take the leave and collect allowances & medical.

You can start your new job while on terminal leave...theoretically possible that you could recalled to duty from terminal leave, but pretty unlikely. You can also get recalled to AD from retirement.

So who's passing the correct gouge here WRT selling back leave...do you only get base pay or do you get everything or just some + base pay when you sell back leave?

I also thought you could only sell back a max of 60 days yet one fella here insinuated he sold back 90 days?

I'm curious because I hit my 20 yr mark in 3 years and plan on having 60 days to sell back (or use for terminal if I have a job).

S/F

It's base pay only and 60 days is the max.

Rickair, your advice to not sell back and take terminal leave is sound IF you have a job. IF you don't it makes no sense monitarily to NOT sell it back. It's 2 extra months of PAY.

I did sell back 90 days. I had a balance of 60 days that I carried in to the new fiscal year. I worked for 12 months in the next fiscal year and accrued 30 more days. Thus I was allowed to sell back 90 days. It was also right after Gulf War 1 and they were fixing it so you didn't loose any leave due to deployment. Don't know what the current rules are for max. sell back.
90 days base pay made a nice cushion to the family budget while I looked for work. Again, every situation is different. If you have the job lined up, then take terminal leave and go to work. If not, then work until the last day and get a nice lump sum to supplement the retirement check while you job hunt.
Just as an interesting note; we had a guy at FedEx that showed up for training while on terminal leave. Don't remember all of the details, but something happened and he had to go back to the Air Force for a little while. Might be better to show up at the new job with a clean break.

All the information is here, it's just a little bit randomized.

If you sell leave, you can only sell once (officers - only applies to folks who previously separated & sold leave) and a maximum of 60 days. If you sell, you get base pay only, minus federal tax.

If you use your leave as terminal leave, you continue to get paid as usual.

There is also Permissive TDY available at the discretion of your commander and is not concurrent with terminal leave. The maximum is 20 days for CONUS and 30 days for OCONUS. These are maximum amounts and 100% at the discretion of your commander who may approve all, some, or none of your request. This PTDY is for job hunting and relocation activities.

You can use some leave and sell some leave - it's not an all or nothing deal and this applies to many who have more than 60 days of accrued leave.

You also accrue leave while on terminal leave. Your total leave calculation is done from your actual retirement date.

You cannot begin work on PTDY, but you can begin a new job while on Terminal Leave - possibly subject to a legal review. Depending on your job desires, it might be worth your time to have the legal office do an ethics review (it verifies you have not been in an acquisition job and have no conflict of interest). This is particularly useful if plan to do any sort of contract flying.

My example.

Retirement Date: 1 June
Leave balance on Sep 30: 72 (2012, so 75 days allowed)
Accrual through Terminal: 1 Oct thru 31 May (8x2.5) = 20
Total Leave on retirement: 92
P-TDY: 20

I quit working 112 days prior to Jun 1, Feb 8th, and got paid my normal paycheck until 31 May. Got my first retired paycheck 1 July. And collected pay from my new job for almost 90 days in addition to my full military pay.

I had considered working and selling 60 days. In that example, assuming I got all my PTDY again, I would've quit working 52 days (92 days of leave - 60 sold + 20 PTDY) before 1 Jun and received a check for base pay x 60 days - taxes.

Always begin your terminal leave on a Monday, no need to give them the weekend for free. ;)

When I separated from AD in 2007 I had 112 days of leave. I just went on terminal leave. It was nice to be getting a regular check for several months. I don't see how "selling" leave back would work in your favor regardless if you have a job or not. Unless you owed someone money and they were threatening to break your legs:eek:.

There may be some confusion here. If you have a hard separation date, perhaps due to HYT, working until the last day and then cashing out leave would make more sense if you don't have a job lined up.

But if you can control your exit date and have something to be doing after that, then terminal leave after your desired exit date is the way to go...you get full allowances the whole time and earn a few extra days of leave in the process.

De-MOBing reservists should absolutely take terminal leave, regardless of what you are doing or not doing after de-MOB.