Legal Question in Veterans Law in Arizona

Historically, veterans with a military retirement and VA disability compensation have had their benefits offset. Starting in 2004, Congress started a 10-ten year phase-in program, whereby those veterans who retired with over 20 years of service, and who had a VA disability rating of 50% or higher, would be able to keep an increasingly larger portion of their military retirement. And now, veterans who are rated at 100% get full concurrent receipt. You may want to see if you could file any new claims for service connection, or request an increase if your service connected disabilities have worsened. I agree, it's unfair. That's the government. Good luck.

There are many things the military does that would be illegal for a private company, such as not vesting you in your retirement plan until you have 20 years. Because of the cost Congress is holding out on reducing the percentage of disability that you must have to get the extra compensation you should be entitled to because of your disability. As Ms. Mitchell said it is only recently that retired military got any additional compensation (unless their compensation was higher than their military retirement).

There are many other benefits that the VA does not tell you about or gives wrong information. For example, there is a special pension benefit available to war period veterans and their surviving spouses called "Improved Pension". It is only available to veterans over 65 unless than are 100% disabled (no age limit on surviving spouses). It is base on the disability of the veteran or surviving spouse, their income (after deducting all unreimbursed medical expenses) and net worth. I have more detailed information on my web site.