carolef

Thank you for all the replies to my post. My ex-husband and I had no idea how complicated the beneficiary issue really is. It seemed like a simple request. For purposes of using the constructive trust to distribute the funds to the survivor's children would a "qualified disclaimer" made by the survivor be acceptable to the IRS mitigate the tax issue? Apologies if this question falls outside of the group's pervue.

We are both in pay status

Since both pensions are the same - joint with survivor benefit annuity both started to be drawn after retirement I think answers would apply to both pensions. It’s a month pension amount we both receive from our respective pensions. so yes, I am asking about both. There was a cash-out benefit or a monthly benefit amount available to choose from. We both chose the monthly benefit amount at retirement in 2015. The beneficiary can be someone other than the spouse or a trust. But permissions has to be written and notarized from spouse. I asked the HR department what would happen to my pension if I died and they said it would go to my ex-husband.

My husband and I recently divorced. We had chose to each keep our own pension plans and change beneficiaries to our children from previous marriages. Our settlement agreement stated we would each retain 100% of our individual pensions and beneficiary was to be revoked including any designation of each as a recipient to survivor benefits. The settlement agreement also stated the court reserves jurisdiction to issue a QDRO. And if the plan did not permit a change to beneficiary then a constructive trust would be setup to ensure the children would receive the pension benefits. i worked for HP and their plan is a defined benefit pension plan which is managed by Fidelity. i worked through Fidelity and kept hitting a brick wall. No change to beneficiary after beginning to draw from the pension. Then a Fidelity agent suggested I get a QDRO which would address the beneficiary rights. However, the third party company I was referred to said there was no delegation for beneficiary in the company QDRO. Beneficiary changes were not allowed. i contacted the companies HR department and found an HR manager who gave me some guidance on getting the beneficiary changed. I needed to provide a letter of instruction and my final divorce judgement outlining the terms of the pension. i provided this documentation and was denied a beneficiary change. I asked the HR manager who would receive the pension benefits upon my death. And he stated it would remain my ex-husband. i am going to try and appeal this decision. Meanwhile has anyone encountered this type of denial before? If so, have they had any success on subsequent tries? I didn’t provide an updated beneficiary statement as I understood from Fidelity the reluctance is the payment is calculated based on my husbands age and life expectancy. To make that a non issue I stated to just restore my full pension. i do have a beneficiary designation form which has a notarized signature from my ex-husband stating he will agree to having his beneficiary rights revoked. The beneficiary form includes trust names and individual names under the trust. Or the beneficiary names. I've been doing some reading about Retirement Trusts. Would using a Retirement Trusts work around this problem if I submitted the beneficiary form with a trust named? if that fails and my ex-husband passes away how do I setup a constructive trust that will pass along his pension to his kids but not have to pay taxes on funds I won’t receive? Thanks for your patience reading this! Any advice is much appreciated! Carole