80+ Things You Can Learn From Your Leave and Earnings Statement

ON MONDAYS I DISCUSS FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS THAT SPECIFICALLY RELATE TO U.S. SERVICE MEMBERS. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR TOPICS YOU’D LIKE TO SEE DISCUSSED, PLEASE LEAVE A NOTE IN THE COMMENTS OR EMAIL ME AT MILITARYDOLLAR@MILITARYDOLLAR.COM.

Every month, you should be receiving a Leave and Earnings Statement (LES) from your service. The LES is your paystub, but it tracks a lot more than that too. It’s a one-stop-shop for your entitlements, deductions, leave, taxes, and Thrift Savings Plan contributions, plus a bit more. I’m going to walk you through the LES so you are aware of all the information it provides.

Okay, well, you might not actually learn 80+ things from this post, since it’s mostly information about YOU. But you may learn that the LES is showing something different than you know to be true. Or that it holds more information than you were expecting.

You see, the LES is broken up into 82 different blocks. Yes, 82! Depending on what information you find in your Remarks block, you have at least 82 different data points on each LES. Some are relatively static, while others change every month.

The Leave and Earnings Statement can serve as a good resource if you ever have trouble with your pay. If you suddenly notice an unexpected change in your pay, this is the first place you should look. You can often find a description of a planned change in the previous month’s LES.

Can you find information on the LES elsewhere? You sure can, but I’ve found a lot of it to be out of date. Every example I found showed an LES from before they split out Traditional and Roth TSP, for instance. Now, the Leave and Earnings Statement doesn’t change much, but it has changed a little in the last few years so I thought this would be a good refresh on the topic. Plus, I’ve expanded on some of the topics…hopefully that’s helpful!

Identification Data

This section identifies your personal information. Some parts are self explanatory; others, you may not be familiar with.

• Name
• Social Security Number
• Pay Grade
• Pay Date: the date you entered active duty for pay purposes. Synonymous with Pay Entry Base Date (PEBD).
• Years of Service
• ETS: Expiration Term of Service. This is synonymous with your Expiration of Active Obligated Service. Notice that for me, an officer with no end date currently in sight, it lists “888888.” That is the equivalent of “Not Applicable” but the pay system requires a number to be input.
• Branch of service
• ADSN/DSSN: The Disbursing Station Symbol Number. It’s used to identify your disbursing/finance office.
• Period Covered: This is the period of time cover by this particular LES. Normally this is one full month. If this is your last LES before separating from service, the separation date will appear in this field.

Entitlements, Deductions, Allotments, and Summary

This section lists all of the money you are earning, plus where it is going (other than your bank account). This is *probably* the area you look at the most when you look at your Leave and Earnings Statement.

• Entitlements: Basic Pay, other pays, and allowances. There is room for up to fifteen entitlements and allowances and apparently if you have more than that, the overflow goes into the Remarks block. I would love to see that. I can’t imagine what kind of craziness your pay must look like if you have 15+ entitlements and allowances!
• Deductions: taxes, SGLI, mid-month pay, dependent dental plan, TSP contributions, etc. Again, there is room for up to 15 deductions. Remember you only get one full Leave and Earnings Statement per month, so the mid-month pay should equal what you got in your mid-month deposit.
• Allotments: discretionary and non-discretionary allotments for savings/checking accounts, insurance, Combined Federal Campaign, etc. There is room for 15 allotments as well. You may see the same name repeated several times, with or without different amounts. This is normal if you have set up multiple allotments to the same organization. For instance, when my Air Force Assistance Fund allotments were active, I had four lines for them, but in different amounts because I gave different amounts to each of the four charities.
• +Amt fwd: Amount Forward. If you have unpaid pay and allowances from a previous LES, you should see it here.
• +Tot ent: Total Entitlements. The total amount of your entitlements and allowances, i.e. your gross income.
• – Tot ded: Total Deductions
• – Tot allt: Total Allotments
• = Net amt: Net Amount. This is any unpaid pay and allowances, plus your total current entitlements and/or allowances, minus your deductions and allotments.
• – Cr fwd: Credit Forward. If you have unpaid pay and allowances that are due at the next LES, you’ll see it here.
• = EOM Pay: End-Of-Month Pay. This is the amount you should see deposited into your bank account.
• DIEMS: Date Initially Entered Military Service. This date is listed here for the sole purpose of determining which retirement plan you fall under.
• RETPLAN: Retirement Plan. This shows which retirement plan you fall under. For those that have a choice between retirement plans, this will either list the selection you’ve made, or it will say “CHOICE.” For instance, if you qualify for either High-3 or REDUX but haven’t yet reached 15 years of service, it will say CHOICE.

Leave

• BF Bal: Brought forward leave balance. This is the amount of leave brought forward from your last Leave and Earnings Statement. The balance may be from the beginning of the fiscal year, or when active duty began, or for some it will be the day after the member was paid Lump Sum Leave.
• Ernd: Earned leave. This is the cumulative amount of leave earned in the current fiscal year or the current term of enlistment, if the member reenlisted or extended since the beginning of the fiscal year. Most people should see this increase by 2.5 days each month since we get 30 days of leave each year (30 day / 12 months = 2.5 days/month).
• Used: the cumulative amount of leave used so far in the current fiscal year or term of enlistment.
• Cr Bal: Current leave balance. Your leave balance as of the end of the LES period.
• ETS Bal: Expiration Term of Service balance. This is the amount of leave you are projected to have through your Expiration Term of Service. For officers, this should normally say .0 since we don’t have a service contract.
• Lv Lost: the number of days of leave that have been lost. Bummer!!
• Lv Paid: the number of days of leave that have been paid to date.
• Use/Lose: the projected number of days of leave that will be lost if not taken in the current fiscal year. It’s July – if you have a number listed here, start using them up! You only have a few months left. And let me tell you, supervisors do NOT appreciate it when you come to them on September 1st and say “by the way, boss, I have 17 days of use or lose to use by the end of the month. See you in October?” Nope nope nope nope nope bad form! Have a plan for using your leave. You earned it!

Federal Taxes

• Wage Period: the amount of money you earned during this LES period that is subject to Federal Income Tax Withholding (FITW). Generally speaking, this is your taxable pay minus any tax-deferred contributions. In my case, that means my Basic Pay minus my Traditional TSP contributions.
• Wage YTD: the money you’ve earned year-to-date that is subject to FITW. Remember that income taxes are based on the calendar year, not the fiscal year like leave.
• M/S: Married or Single. Your marital status, which is used to compute your federal tax burden.
• Ex: Exemptions. This should match how many exemptions you have claimed. You can change the number of exemptions in myPay, if needed. myPay uses this screen to virtually complete a IRS Form W-4 for you. Some reasons you might want to adjust your exemptions are if you get married or divorced, have children, retire, buy a home, etc. Basically anything that can significantly affect your taxes is a good reason to review your exemptions.
• Add’l Tax: Additional tax. If you have specified an additional amount of tax you’d like withheld from your paycheck, you will see an amount here. A good reason to do this might be if you have a second income that you aren’t paying taxes on. For instance, my income from this blog is nominal right now, but if it increases to the point where I might be underpaying my taxes, I can go into myPay and elect to have more withheld. You can do the same for other income you might be earning, such as eBay sales, rental income, or any other income where you don’t have taxes taken out.
• Tax YTD: this is handy for figuring out if you are on track with your tax withholding for the year. Not sure? The IRS puts out a calculator each year to estimate your taxes. You can access the 2017 version here. If it’s no longer 2017 when you are reading this, search for “IRS withholding calculator” and the current year; you should find it. I’ve found it to be pretty accurate – one year it was only off by $6 after accounting for everything. The closer you are to the end of the year, the more accurate it will be because you’ll know how much you’ve earned as well as what you expect to have for deductions for the year.

Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA)

FICA is the shorthand for the taxes you pay, combined, for Social Security and Medicare.

• Wage Period: the amount of money earned during this LES period that is subject to FICA. It’s important to note that while tax-deferred contributions to a retirement plan are not taxable for federal income tax purposes, they are taxable for FICA. However, FICA taxable income is capped each year. For 2017, the limit is $127,200. Any income above that limit is FICA tax free.
• Soc Wage YTD: the wages earned year-to-date that are subject to FICA.
• Soc Tax YTD: the cumulative total of FICA taxes withheld so far in the calendar year.
• Med Wage YTD: the wages earned year-to-date that are subject to Medicare withholding.
• Med Tax YTD: the cumulative total of Medicare taxes withheld so far in the calendar year.

State Taxes

• St: State. The two-digit identifier for the state you identified as your home state.
• Wage Period: The amount of money earned during this LES period that is subject to State Income Tax Withholding (SITW).
• Wage YTD: the amount earned year-to-date that is subject to SITW.
• M/S: Married or Single. Your marital status, which is used to compute SITW.
• Ex: Exemptions. The number of exemptions you have claimed for SITW. You can also change this via myPay.
• Tax YTD: the cumulative total of SITW withheld this calendar year.

Additional Pay Data

This is kind of the “catch-all” section of the Leave and Earnings Statement. It talks about allowances, charitable giving, and a few other items.

• BAQ Type: the type of Basic Allowance for Quarters (aka Basic Allowance for Housing) being paid.
• BAQ DEPN: a code that indicates the types of dependents you have.
• VHA ZIP: the zip code that would be used for computing Variable Housing Allowance (VHA), if you are entitled to it.
• Rent Amt: the amount of rent paid for housing, if applicable.
• Share: the number of people you share housing costs with (according to the government).
• Stat: your VHA status, i.e. accompanied or unaccompanied.
• JFTR: the Joint Federal Travel Regulation (JFTR) code based on your location, for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) purposes.
• Depns: the number of dependents you have, for VHA purposes.
• 2d JFTR: the JFTR code based on the location of your dependents, for COLA purposes.
• BAS Type: a code that indicates the type of Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) you are receiving, if applicable. This is always blank for officers.
• Charity YTD: if you contribute to charities via your paycheck (such as the Combined Federal Campaign) you will see the cumulative amount for the calendar year here. Extremely handy for when it comes time to file taxes!
• TPC: Training Program Codes. This block isn’t used by the active component of any service. For Reserves and Guard, you should see a code that identifies your status during that LES period. I think. It’s always hard to find information on Reserve and Guard pay!
• PACIDN: the activity Unit Identification Code (UIC), which is only used on the Army LES.

Thrift Savings Plan

In recent years, they’ve split up the LES sections for the Thrift Savings Plan into a line for the Traditional Plan and another for the Roth Plan. Both lines have the same blocks.

• Base Pay Rate: this is the percentage of your Basic Pay that you have going into the Traditional and Roth plans. It’s written as a whole number, not a percentage, but trust me – it’s the percentage.
• Base Pay Current: depending on which resource you are looking at, it will either say this is “reserved for future use” or that it should list the dollar amount of your TSP contribution during that LES period. It lists .00 for me even though my TSP contributions are active and are listed in the Deductions block, so I think it’s reserved for future use. Let us know if it’s different for you!
• Spec Pay Rate: same as Base Pay Rate, but for special pays.
• Spec Pay Current: same as Base Pay Current, but for special pays.
• Inc Pay Rate: same as Base Pay Rate, but for incentive pays….noticing a trend?
• Inc Pay Current: same as Base Pay Current, but for incentive pays.
• Bonus Pay Rate: same as Base Pay Rate, but for bonus pays.
• Bonus Pay Current: same as Base Pay Current, but for bonus pays.
• YTD Deductions: the total amount you’ve contributed to TSP for the calendar year, counting both Traditional and Roth contributions.
• YTD TSP Deferred: the total amount you’ve contributed to your Traditional TSP Plan this calendar year.
• YTD TSP Exempt: deployed this year? Contributed to a TSP during that time? The amount you contributed while your income was tax exempt will be reported here.
• YTD ROTH: the total amount you’ve contributed to your Roth TSP Plan this calendar year.

What I’m interested in seeing is how the Leave and Earnings Statement will change next year when we start seeing government contributions to the TSP on the member’s behalf. Will that show up on the LES? I suspect not, but it’d be nice. We’ll know soon enough!

Remarks and Year-To-Date Totals

• YTD ENTITLE: this is the sum total of all entitlements and allowances for the calendar year.
• YTD DEDUCT: this is the sum total of all deductions for the calendar year.
• Remarks: DFAS will add anything extra in this spot. For instance, it will list your bank and any messages from your command. In the example Leave and Earnings Statement I’ve posted, it shows a message about my Air Force Assistance Fund allotments ending. That’s a reminder to me that I need to find my AFAF rep so I can restart those charitable contributions. There is also a message about the Blended Retirement System Calculator, huzzah! You know that makes me happy.

So that’s it. All 82+ pieces of information you will find in your Leave and Earnings Statement. I really didn’t think I’d have 2500 words to write about this topic when I got started. I’m exhausted. Time for some 4th of July prep! Anybody have any fun plans for the holiday?