11/25/2023
Veterans Administration (VA) Disability Compensation (DC
By Scott Rhode USAR Pay Mgt Div
If you are a Soldier receiving Veterans Administration (VA) Disability Compensation (DC) you may not receive DC and military pay for the same day. You must complete a VA Form 21-8951-2 to elect either to waive your DC or your military pay for periods of military duty.
Provide a copy of the completed form to your unit and your local VA office. At the end of each fiscal year, you must record the number of drills and active duty days you performed on a new VA Form 21-5189-2 and send it to the VA. The VA will identify individuals concurrently receiving both disability compensation and military pay and allowance.
When making your waiver election keep the following in mind:
• It is almost always to your benefit financially to receive military pay and waive your DC for the days you performed military duty.
• If you elect to waive your DC and receive military pay for the days you perform military duty, the VA will reduce your DC during the next year only by the number of days of military duty performed in the previous year. For instance, if you perform 48 drills and 14 days of AT, the VA will withhold 62 days of DC during the next fiscal year. Many Soldiers believe that choosing to waive DC means they won’t receive any DC. This is not true.
• If you elect to waive your military pay, you will not receive pay for any drills or active duty days. You will also incur an SGLI debt every month since you will not have income to collect it against. You will also appear as a potential unsatisfactory participant on pay and personnel reports since these reports track participation by reviewing Soldier payments.
The following example shows the financial impacts for a SSG over 14 years of service with a 40% disability rating who chooses to waive her military pay. Her disability compensation is $699.36 a month or $23.31 per day. Her Basic Pay is $122.48 daily. The difference between her daily Basic Pay and DC rate is $99.17
By waiving her military pay she loses $122.48 for each drill period. If she waived her DC, she would only lose $23.31 of her VA compensation for the next year for each drill period performed. Over 48 drills she would lose $5,879.04 by waiving her military pay (48 drills x $122.48) but only $1,118.88 (48 x $23.31) if she waived her DC. She would lose even more for each day of active duty by waiving military pay because of the additional entitlements for BAH and BAS.
Please ensure that you and your Soldiers understand the financial impacts of their VA DC election. Contact your unit administrator or RPAC if you have questions.
