MTRS Pension and Present Value Calculator
This page contains two calculators: 1) a free, online calculator that allows you to estimate your future Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS) annual benefits, and 2) an actuarial present value pension calculator that allows you to calculate TODAY’S value of your future stream of MTRS pension benefit payments. Present value calculations are often used for division of marital assets in divorce.
You can check a box lower on this page to indicate the type of calculation you would like to do.
Free MTRS Pension Benefit Calculator
This Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System calculator gives you an estimate of your MTRS pension retirement benefits based on the information you input about your salary, years of service, and retirement age and date. It also takes into account whether you are a RetirementPlus participant or a military veteran. The formulas in the calculator are drawn from the MTRS “Estimating your MTRS retirement benefits” worksheet, and should give the same results as that worksheet. The MTRS Worksheet emphasizes that these formulas give approximations or estimations of retirement benefits. Actual retirement benefits will be determined by MTRS at the time of retirement.
You may find this calculator easier to use than the MTRS Worksheet, because the MTRS Worksheet:
a) does not allow you to see and compare, on the same page, pension benefits with and without purchased service,
b) clears all your entries after giving you results, so you can’t correct or change a single field, and
c) has VERY confusing instructions for entering the data required to calculate Option C benefits.
The calculator on this page works only for MTRS members with membership dates before April 2, 2012. It will not give the correct results for members with membership dates after April 2, 212 (“Tier 2” members), who have different “retirement percentages”, and it will not produce estimates for disability, termination, or MA “Special Spousal” benefits.
You can learn more about MTRS retirement at the state site. https://mtrs.state.ma.us/
MTRS Pension Present Value Calculator
This present value calculator provides the present value of Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS) pensions in one step. Couples who are divorcing are often required to document the present value of their pensions in order to achieve a fair division of the couple’s financial assets. Present value calculations translate the predicted value of a future stream of pension payments into the equivalent lump sum cash value that they would have today.
This PV calculator accounts for both mortality (rates at which people survive each year and collect more pension benefits) and interest rates, making thousands of calculations in a split second. You can see a sample pension present value report by clicking here. The report produced by this site shows, year-by-year, how interest and mortality discounting interact with pension benefits and cost of living adjustments. Actuaries, financial planners, and accountants generally charge $175-$300 to provide a present value.
This MTRS calculator uses the GATT interest rates and calculation methodology. The IRC method gives the lowest present values. If you would like to do a calculation with the IRC method or the PBGC method, you should use the present value calculator on the homepage of this site.
You do not need to calculate your projected, future benefits for your MTRS pension. This calculator does it for you, using formulas drawn directly from the “Estimating your MTRS retirement benefits” worksheet. You simply need to enter information about years of service, age, salary, and projected retirement date. The calculator is designed to be used for division of assets in divorce, so you will also have the opportunity to enter your marriage date and the time periods when you accrued pension credits (“years of service”). The calculator will provide with you a “coverture ratio”–the proportion of your pension credits accumulated while you were married–and will calculate the dollar amount of the total present value that is “marital”, i.e., the part of the present value that belongs to the marriage. Generally, the marital portion of the pension is considered to belong jointly to the pension participant and non-participant spouse.
This calculator has the standard MTRS cost-of-living-adjustment (“COLA”) built into it: 3% of the first $13,000 of your pension each year, starting in the July benefit payments after you have been retired for 1 full year. (If you retire June 31, you wait 1 full year for the first application of COLA; if you retire July 1, you wait 2 full years before you receive a COLA.)
This calculator works for individuals who entered MTRS BEFORE April 2, 2012.
You must make one entry in the calculator that may be confusing. For question #C.8., you must enter the number of years and months of creditable service that you have TODAY. Even though you enter a planned retirement date in the future (e.g., age 60, 62, 65, etc.), for question #C.8 you must enter the years and months of creditable service you have RIGHT NOW. This is because the calculator determines a PRESENT value of the pension, based only on years of service you have earned until now. (This idea is difficult because we usually use these calculators to estimate our monthly benefits based on the number of years of service we will have in the future, at retirement, not the number of years we have TODAY, pre-retirement.)
This calculator does not work with Internet Explorer–please use a different browser.
Choose the type of calculation you would like to do:
I would like to calculate the PRESENT VALUE of my MTRS pension ($35, after confirming inputs)
Please report any bugs to me and please pass along suggestions on how to make it more comprehensive or user-friendly: [email protected]
Option A
Option B
Option C
Please report any bugs to me and please pass along suggestions on how to make the calculators more comprehensive or user-friendly: [email protected]
Age | Year | Basic annual pension payment before any cost of living adjust (COLA), if any | Cost of living adjustment (COLA), if any |
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A) To pay with a coupon code:
i) Enter your coupon codeii) Click the blue “APPLY” button
iii) Click the large green button “GIVE ME THE PRESENT VALUE”.
B) If you do not have a coupon code, i) purchase the number of calculations you desire through PayPal, and then ii) click the large green button “GIVE ME THE PRESENT VALUE”:
Age | Year during which Age starts | Partial Year | Gross Annual Benefit | Dollar value of annual COLA in Gross Annual Benefit | Interest discount rate | Probability of Surviving each year | Present Value of Annual Benefit |
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