Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (Ind-Saipan) said the Settlement Fund doesn\u2019t need to automatically deduct federal income tax on the 25-percent deferred pension payments to retirees since most retirees like him already indicated their preference when they submitted their W-4P when they first received their pensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the right. Whatever interest and penalty I need to pay, I pay. This is in their file already. They know what I want. They know that several other retirees have their own W-4P on their file. So why do they need to ask them again?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Reyes, who will retire after the 18th Legislature, suspects that something is afoot with the Settlement Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they continue to delay this, you can only suspect that something not good is happening. This is the responsibility of every individual. It\u2019s required by the employer and in this case, I guess, the Settlement Fund is our employer. But we submitted that the first time we became entitled to receive pensions. It\u2019s in their records. They know what we want. They don\u2019t need to deduct 10 percent. If it\u2019s in the file then deduct the 10 percent. But if it\u2019s in their file and says they don\u2019t want the federal tax deducted, then don\u2019t deduct.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this practice persists, the Settlement Fund might be justified to charge CNMI retirees for administrative costs, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is giving them a reason to charge us for administrative costs. This is something that\u2019s rather disturbing for me. If it\u2019s in their file that says deduct for exemptions claiming, then deduct. But for them to come out and ask them to resubmit\u2026this is a choice by individual pensioners to do. It\u2019s very unnecessary and it\u2019s an injustice to retirees who need their money now. This is governmental bureaucracy!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Battered buying power\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Former Department of Public Lands secretary John DelRosario bemoaned the non-guaranteed nature of retirees getting 25 percent of their deferred pension under the settlement agreement in the Betty Johnson case. <\/p>\n \u201cThe increase in health premium by 40 percent, $1,000 health deductible, costly power bills and increase in cost of living by at least 24 percent plus the seesaw payment of the 25 percent in pension pay doesn’t leave much room to navigate heavy reduction in our battered buying power.\u201d<\/p>\n DelRosario, a Saipan Tribune columnist, said the fact that pensions are now cut in court-ordered payments is a tell-all that the current CNMI government is bankrupt.<\/p>\n \u201cEven government utility debt must now be paid via court-ordered mode of payment where CIP funds are now being used to meet this obligation. Moreover, NMI refuses to appropriate some $38 million to defray the operations of [the Commonwealth Health Center].\u201d <\/p>\n He said it boils down to the CNMI government being broke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (Ind-Saipan) said the Settlement Fund doesn\u2019t need to automatically deduct…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,50,733,244],"class_list":["post-182520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-power","tag-settlement-fund","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}