TO COMMUTE OR NOT TO COMMUTE PENSION
Whenever any retiring officer approaches us for advice, invariably the question of whether or not to commute the pension comes up. This article deals with this issue so that all officers, retired or retiring, would be able to make up their mind more knowledgeably.
Before we take a call on the same, a few connected issues need to be understood clearly:-
- Basic Pension is exactly half of your last drawn Basic Salary. And Basic Salary is Basic + Grade Pay + Rank Pay.
- Whenever commutation is done, only the Basic Pension gets commuted, never the DA received. Thus, after commutation also, the DA is received on full value of Basic Pension.
- Commutation can be done of any value from 0% to 50%. However, generally almost all the officers get 50% commutation done, if they go in for it.
- Commutation is done based on a factor of commutation set by the Government which depends on the years of service that you’ve put in. To put it more simply, it is the time adjusted Present Value of your future pension.
- Pension is restored exactly 15 years after first commuted pension is received by you.
- Though not confirmed, probably commutation can still be done within one year of retirement, if the officer has not done commutation and wishes to change his decision.
Now, let us understand the difference between a commuted pension and an uncommuted pension. We’ll understand it by an example.
Case Study
The officer is a Col who has Rs 60,000 of Basic Pay, 8700 of Grade Pay and 6000 of Rank Pay, making it a total of Rs 74,700 of Basic Pay while serving. He will commute 50% of his pension, if he does so. He is in a dilemma what to do. A commutation factor of 8.08 is applicable to him. The DA is 119% at present.
His Basic Pension is = Rs 74,700 / 2 = Rs 37,350.
If he does not commute the pension:-
Monthly Pension received by him = Rs 37,350 + (119% of 37,350) = Rs 81,800.
If he commutes the pension:
Monthly Pension received by him = Rs 18,675 (ie, 37,350/2) + 44,446 (ie, 119% of 37,350) = Rs 63,121.
In addition, he will receive, a bulk commuted pension amount of Rs 19.9 Lakhs (ie, 18,675 X 12 months X 8.88 factor).
Analysis of Commutation Vs Non-commutation:
If you see the calculations above, the difference between commuted and non-commuted monthly pension is about Rs 18,680, which is not much of an additional amount to be received every month. And, he also gets a big sum of Rs 19.9 Lakhs in bulk. He would be able to generate long term returns of anything from 6% – 12% per annum net of tax, depending on where he invests his commuted amount. If he takes up re-employment or corporate job after retirement, for a few years, this small additional monthly amount will anyway not matter much to him. Thus, commutation seems better than on-commutation due to following three reasons:-
- Difference between 50% commuted (maximum allowed) and uncommuted pension is not much on a per month basis. As such, for this officer and his wife, living in their own house, Rs 63,000 per month of commuted pension is normally quite adequate.
- The bulk amount is quite large. Apart from providing a big financial security, it can be prudently invested to generate the gap amount (between commuted and uncommuted monthly pension) while still retaining the bulk money with you in your kitty.
- In case something untoward happens to the officer, the Government pays the same pension to the family of commuted and uncommuted cases, thus effectively ‘forgetting’ the commuted pension bulk amount given to the officer. This is a large welfare measure by the Govt.
If the Officer retires after 01 Jan 2016, ie 7th CPC applicable to him:
It is assumed that the 7th pay commission will increase his serving basic pay by 20%. Thus his serving Basic Pay will be Rs 89,640 and hence, Pension Basic Rs 44,820.
If he does not commute the pension, he gets a Pension of Rs 98,156.
If he commutes pension by 50%, his pension will be Rs 75,746. And he gets a commuted amount of Rs 23.88 Lakhs.
Again, even after pay commission effect, the gap between maximum commuted and non-commuted pension is only Rs 22,410 while the officer gets Rs 23.88 Lakhs as bulk if he commutes by 50%.
Our Recommendations
We strongly recommend that all officers should commute their pension to the maximum allowed 50%. If the officers are also able to invest their commuted pension bulk amount wisely and carefully, there is not likely to be any difference (or a minor difference) in their take-home pension even after commutation while still having this large commuted amount with them.
For more information, feel free to reach us on, contactus@humfauji.in or call + 011 – 4240 2032, 40545977, 49036836
