Here is a look at MOAA’s priorities, in support of the 50th anniversary of our all-volunteer force and to address the challenges facing our uniformed community.

PRESS RELEASE

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN SZOKA

45TH House District

Phone Number: 919.733.9892 North Carolina House of Representatives

Room 2207, Legislative Building Raleigh, NC 27601

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 16, 2021

HB 83, NO STATE INCOME TAX FOR MILITARY RETIRED PAY

INCLUDED IN STATE BUDGET CONFERENCE REPORT

In North Carolina we’ve called ourselves “the most Military friendly state in the country” for quite some time. While it’s true that we’ve done a lot in the past 10 years to make North Carolina more military friendly, the one policy we didn’t have was to exclude Federal Military Retirement Pay from State Income Tax.

HB83 Eliminate Income Tax for Military Retirees was filed early this year. When filed by Representatives John Szoka, John Bradford, John Bell and Diane Wheatley, HB83 had strong bipartisan support in the House with a total of 59 bill sponsors and co-sponsors. On June 16, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill 100-5, in another major show of bipartisan support. Today, members of the Conference Committee on SB105, the state budget, signed the Conference Report which includes the text of HB83.

The timeliness of this action this close to Veterans Day is appropriate. Remember the words of our Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What has kept these truths alive from the founding of our country until now is the Armed Forces of the United States. Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and the Coast Guard who freely volunteered to defend our country and our way of life in both peacetime and wartime. They, their spouses, and family have sacrificed immeasurably over their careers. Including HB83 in the budget is a fitting recognition of those sacrifices and the value that we place in military retirees.

When this budget becomes law, then we can truly say that North Carolina is the most military friendly state in the country.

Contact: John Szoka (john.szoka@ncleg.net)

Representative John Szoka | North Carolina General Assembly 45th House District / Cumberland County

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MOAA engages with Congress on all manner of issues related to the uniformed services community.

For more than 90 years, this work has led to real results – pay and benefits protected from budget-driven threats, continued access to quality medical care, and countless other areas of concern to our members, our military, and the wider uniformed services community.

No list could encompass everything MOAA’s achieved since 1929, but click on download bar below to see highlights.

Here are MOAA’s priorities for advocacy as the 117th Congress begins its work. Our focus remains on all eight of the uniformed services and their service-earned entitlements.

As protecting health care and service-earned benefits continues to be a challenge, MOAA will press forward in engaging Congress to shape outcomes in these vital areas.

There are steep hills before us. Our nation has a rising debt of more than $27 trillion, and a deficit of more than $3 trillion. In view of this, MOAA anticipates robust attempts to control federal budgets, reduce or eliminate unprogrammed expenditures, and reduce entitlements.

Please follow the link below to get a more in-depth explanation.

This week, MOAA had an exclusive preview of TRICARE's widely anticipated new dental and vision plans. This new insurance option for certain beneficiaries is set to be offered starting Jan. 1, 2019. The newly designed option was included in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act with the legislated start date of 2019. The later starting time is meant to allow for better planning and communication for this new plan, as it will be offered and administered through the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP).

Here's the rundown on who is eligible for what. All TRICARE retirees and their families are eligible for both the dental insurance and the vision coverage. Active duty military families are only eligible for the vision coverage.

The FEDVIP dental program of offerings will replace the existing TRICARE Retiree Dental Plan, which is currently provided through Delta Dental. That program will sunset Dec. 31, 2018.

Here's what will be offered. The retiree dental plan and the new addition of a vision plan will allow for beneficiaries to make a selection from among several dental and vision carriers with a variety of benefit options. For example, in 2018 the FEDVIP program lists 10 dental carriers and four vision carriers (Delta Dental is included) with comprehensive dental and vision insurance at competitive group rates.

Key facts:

Eligible beneficiaries must choose their plan during TRICARE's open season, which is scheduled to be Nov. 12 - Dec. 10, 2018.

There will be no automatic transition for those beneficiaries currently enrolled in the TRICARE Retiree Dental Program. Beneficiaries will be required to enroll for coverage.

Enrollment and plan changes can only occur during the open season with the exceptions for those beneficiaries with qualifying life events (usually anything that necessitates a change in the DEERS system).

Here's the kind of coverage TRICARE beneficiaries will get with FEDVIP (besides more choices):

* no wait period for most dental services;

* no annual maximum benefit for some dental plans;

* regional and national dental networks;

* no deductible for some vision plans;

* no limit on brands for frames or contacts for some vision plans; and

* discounts on LASIK offered by some vision plans.

Beneficiaries are encouraged to start getting information and pre-enrollment communications through the website set up just for this program. The website, www.TRICARE.benefeds.com, will be up and running Feb. 1.

MOAA is working with the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the administration of the federal employees benefit programs, to provide input on communication and feedback on the website, anticipate challenges, and brainstorm solutions for this newly available program for TRICARE beneficiaries.

Are you aware of the major issues and MOAA's legislative initiatives? Keep up to date on legislative action that affects you, your spouse, and your family, and then take action.

President Obama did not directly address sequestration in his January 20 State of the Union address, but his February 2 budget proposal is expected to include a fix.

The administration’s FY 2016 budget proposal will be unveiled in less than two weeks.

What’s unclear is how the President might pay for budget relief. It could be through a combination of alternative spending cuts, closing corporate tax loopholes, and increasing the capital gains tax – all proposals laid out in his annual address.

Such a plan may collide with a fiscally-wary Republican-controlled Congress, but it could serve as an important starting point for negotiations.

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel added urgency to repealing sequestration: “The progress we have made will quickly evaporate if sequestration returns in 2016. We need long-term budget predictability and we need the flexibility to prioritize and make the difficult decisions…we will not be able, this institution, to fulfill the commitments of the president’s defense strategies with the kind of continued abrupt, steep, large cuts that sequestration will demand.”

Legislators on both sides of the aisle agree that sequestration’s across-the-board cuts must be avoided. Congress succeeded in passing a bipartisan proposal to temporarily avoid sequestration in FY 2014 and 2015. Agreement on a way to fund a new fix remains elusive.

An important update to the work by the 4th Branch to extend the provisions of the Bailey-Patton tax relief legislation to all eligible North Carolina retirees is discussed in a letter from the Federal Retiree Task Force of North Carolina Director Paul E. Sams. Click on download below to read.

The 4th Branch is a coalition representing military, federal, state and local public-service retirees working for fair and equitable treatment for all government retirees regarding taxation of earned retirement benefits.