Pay and allowance questions (flight, hazard duty, family separation)

[war007afa]

You may also be elligible for family separation allowance, which is another $250/month if you are gone a long enough duration.

[Scooter14]

Slilock,

It's Hardship Duty Pay you're talking about. Nothing to do with getting shot at.

FWIW, Hostile Fire Pay is also "Imminent Danger Pay" (like ASUPilot siad). Don't know what that means, I guess it means someone could conceivably Khobar Towers or Beiruit Barracks your ass. Whatever. All I know is that they pay it to me, and I'm not going to go back to Finance with it because I went off base or didn't get shot at.

Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger

[ 26. June 2006, 07:21: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

[barney]

new add lt wondering where his pay is. being the 1st of the month and all i would suspect that biatch to be direct deposited into my acct. has not been. have any of you other new LTs gotten payed yet. tried to go to my pay and was not recognized by them.

[ 01. August 2006, 19:21: Message edited by: Toro ]

[Guest KillYourself]

Another broke ADD LT here.

Call up DEERS and see if you are updated in their system as an active duty LT yet. The AF still thinks I'm a cadet so I'm not expecting to get paid anytime soon. Damnit.

[Guest F152 Pilot]

Good luck trying to get paid from finance; it took me about 5 weeks. You are what is known as an accession Lt. and if you ask, they are going to tell you that it just takes a long time to get your money. This is a load of crap. You are now working and you deserve a paycheck. In my situation according to finance, I was not actually going to get paid for 2 months. This pissed me off so I told my boss about the situation and got him to come down to finance with me. Its amazing how much more pull a Col. has than a new Lt. I got paid that day. I suggest talking to the highest ranking guy in your office that is willing to help you. If anything, even just a call from them should speed up the process. And welcome to the Air Force finance world, your situation is not the exception, it’s the norm. Just wait until you try to submit a travel voucher. Remember, keep multiple copies of everything!

[barney]

yes i started IFS, the process is fairly simple. go to, https://19afpub.randolph.af.mil and download the IFS package. make sure it is the IFS and not the IFT/NIFT because that is still up there. it was easier for me with the FBO that I went through because they have dealt with guys in my situation before as far as dealing with insurance/rates and such. anyway, contact 19AF/HQ and get an authorization # to begin flying. fax AETC form 410 "hazardous activities" w/ your bosses signature along with AF FROM 127a. (all these are on the packet) and that is all that you need to start. I think that you have two weeks to download and start, I think that it says on your orders. feel free to PM w/ any q's

good luck

[ 02. August 2006, 06:13: Message edited by: Toro ]

[Clayton Bigsby]

if finance can't pay you on the spot in the correct manner, you can get your paycheck as a loan, from finance. They can figure out what you'd make and pay you that amount, in person, and then once you are "paid" in the correct manner, take it back.

It's not adviseable as I always felt they took back a little more than I received, but it's the way I had to do things initially - I did not get paid all the way through BMT and through my first 3 months of service.

basically you are worthless to the air force while you're in the pipeline, until you arrive to your first duty station following your tech school. Only then are you treated like a real citizen.

[Smokin]

"Its amazing how much more pull a Col. has than a new Lt."

Very true, this is the only time in your career (or at least for a long time) that you have an O-6 that has less than a dozen AD people in his command. Ask him to go to bat for you and I'll bet you'll get paid a lot sooner. When I was an ADD Lt, I was the senior officer at the det for about two weeks due to a bunch of TDY's. Our host base called and said I needed to go there for in processing, including base orientation and that kind of crap, traveling on my own dime (they said I couldn't go TDY to my own base). As a brand new O-1, I didn't have any way out of it. When the Col came back, the base called again saying I needed go to back for some more queep. He called them up and told them no and I never heard from them again.

[Guest Slilock]

Go to the Employment section of your MPF and tell them you're a new Accession Officer. They'll have to build you a pay record for DFAS since you're new to the Air Force.

/Former Personnel Geek

[R-Dub]

Here's two pieces of information I can offer that should get you some money in less than a week:

1. Get the pay advance when you go to Finance. You can get a one to three month pay advance that, in effect, acts like an interest free loan. You need commander's authorization for any amount over one month of base pay advance, but I found that just around $2,000 plus any DITY move reimbursements that you might get holds off the bills for a few weeks.

2. Keep going back to Finance and NEVER left the A1C across the desk tell you that there's nothing they can do and you just walk out. Once you're loaded into DFAS, it really doesn't take long...they really should just do they're job and access you into the system.

EDIT: Also, with MyPay, just like the website says, it'll take between 6-8 weeks before you can access your online LES...for example, I completed my Finance inprocessing sometime around 5 Jun but wasn't able to access my LES statements until my July end of the month statement.

[ 06. August 2006, 15:17: Message edited by: RWaller52 ]

[AFCS_Actuator]

I have some more "new Lt" questions. I PCS to my first base (Barksdale) at the end of Septemeber. I have this checklist for PCSing from my TMO that is telling me to contact my Finance Office for details on TLA, BAH, and advance travel pay. I don't know what TLA or advance travel pay is exactly. I'm not sure I will get anywhere if I call the FO at Barksdale because I'm probably not in the system. Does anyone shed some light on this stuff?

PS - WTF were they teaching us in ROTC when I needed to know how to move and how to get paid?

[Guest Grouch]

I don't know if this might help but when I came on AD I had to go in and harass finance every two weeks to get hand paid for 2.5 months before I finally made it into the "system". Also, if you do this make sure they pay you the correct amount, the actually overpaid me and for christmas that year they were nice enough to take back the overpay and I got $42 for that last two weeks in Dec. as a paycheck. Don't worry, finance will continually screw with your pay, I think just to keep you on your toes and its always the "system's fault."

[Guest PilotKD]

I know there used to be a pretty good pay calculator online that has been down for quite a while with no plans on being put back up, but I found this one and it's a lot better:

https://staynavytools.bol.navy.mil/PCC/Defa...unch+Calculator

[Guest Mrs Hog]

It's a handy tool, but it doesn't actually calculate actual retirement pay...seemed more of a re-enlistment/incentive to stay in calculator to me.

[Guest jdizzle]

I just looked at my LES for the upcoming payday next week (28 Feb/1 Mar or whatever). It says my End of Month Pay is going to be $305... yes, $305.00. This is because I have this item under Deductions called "Partial Pay" for $1150. I also have a deduction for Mid-Month Pay, so it's not that. Everything else is correct for deductions and allotments including SGLI, MGIB, and advance pay.

This is the first time I've ever seen this Partial Pay thing before, and all of a sudden it pops up (sts) and leaves me in a lurch this pay period, right when I'm supposed to PCS in 6 more days.

Can anyone offer some words of wisdom as to what the heck this is? I figure I'd ask here before waiting in line for an hour at Finance.

Thanks.

[backseatdriver]

Did you get back from a deployment in the last few months and they kept paying you HFP, Tax free, etc after you got back? If so they may be recouping it.

[Guest jdizzle]

Nope, no deployments. I did go TDY for a week a little while back, which I already got correctly paid for.

[LT4Life]

That happened to me on my first PCS. After I commissioned I got sent to Pcola for UPT and did my initial inprocessing a little over a week after arriving which was a few weeks after being on active duty. Between getting back pay from the Air Force, reimbursed for my DITY, DLA, BAH, etc.. they overpaid me. They did exactly what happened to you except I got somewhere around a $70 paycheck. It can be a pain in the A$$ to have them take it out over a few months or however you want them to do it but talk to finance ASAP if you want to go that route.

[Guest Bayonet29]

This has happened to me more than a few times. I actually found out today that finance screwed up and overpayed me for lodging at Altus. Thank God they are only taking a couple hundred a paycheck. They are supposed to notify you about this prior to leaving you with no or very little money for a pay period. Make sure your addres is updated with finance. That was a problem for me. Also, look for a line on the LES saying something like Advance pay debt. That (I'm told) should indicate an upcoming debt being withdrawn.

[Guest LoadChik]

Quick question regarding pay in a war zone, not necessarily mil pay.

Is there a cap on how much you can make annually..... before they start to tax you on it?

( i.e. contractor working at Bagram/Iraq making $110K plus. Is the first 80K tax free and the rest taxed?)

Thanks!

[Guest Boom]

If you're a civilian the first $82,400 is tax free.

[Whitman]

I heard you can't make more than a CMSgt tax free and that it's usually not a factor until you make Major.

[HerkDerka]

Commissioned officer's pay up to base pay for the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force plus HFP is tax exempt.

For enlisted, no cap. Leave earned while under CTZE is also exempt.

HD

[Guest Robes]

Money placed into TSP is also exempt, However, I do not know about the earnings on that money.

[Champ Kind]

I checked the link that Baseops.Net posted above, but does anyone have an official website that governs the family separation allowance (i.e., something I can look up, print out, and take into finance)?

Thanks!