For many members, your OMERS records for different periods of employment are automatically combined, unless you took your OMERS benefits out of the Plan after your previous employment period ended. If your normal retirement age (NRA) changes when your records are combined, you will have an NRA conversion.
In most cases, your memberships are combined into a single record and your full contributory earnings history is used to calculate your "best five" earnings and applied to all of your credited service.
There are some cases where membership records are not automatically combined, which are further explained below.
If you are currently receiving an OMERS pension and you are re-employed with an OMERS employer, you will need to stop receiving your pension if you wish to re-enrol in the Plan. If you decide to re-enrol in the Plan and you previously received a 50% rule refund, it must be repaid with applicable interest to combine your membership records.
There are a few scenarios where membership records are not combined. Read below to see if they apply to you:
Scenario 1
If you previously chose to withdraw your commuted value (CV) from the Plan, your past service cannot be combined with your current service. However, if it has been five years or more since you received your CV payment, you may be able to buy back your service. In many cases, your buy-back cost will increase over time, particularly as your earnings grow or you get closer to retirement age.
Scenario 2
If you left your pension with OMERS but you received a refund of excess contributions (i.e., 50% rule refund), you may be able to combine service with your former OMERS employer with your current OMERS service by repaying the 50% rule refund with applicable interest. Combining your memberships might not always help you retire with a bigger pension. It's an important decision that you should consider carefully and you may wish to consult a financial planner.
Scenario 3
If your periods of employment with your OMERS employers overlapped, you are likely to remain a dual member – for example, if the date you ended employment with one OMERS employer is after your enrolment date with your most current OMERS employer. Read below for more details about dual memberships.
Not tax-deductible
If you want to repay your 50% rule refund using funds from your RRSP account, ask the financial institution that holds your RRSP for a CRA Form T2033. Complete the required sections and return it along with your 50% rule repayment form to your current OMERS employer.
The transfer of RRSP funds must be in the exact amount required to repay your 50% rule refund plus applicable interest. Overpayments cannot be accepted.
Amounts transferred from your RRSP are not tax-deductible since they are moving from one tax-deferred retirement savings vehicle (your RRSP account) to another (the Plan).
Tax-deductible
If you use cash, the amount you pay is tax-deductible. Please make your cheque payable to OMERS. We will provide you with an income tax receipt, which you can file with your income tax return to get the applicable deduction.
The full gross amount of the 50% rule refund you received plus interest must be repaid. This includes any taxes that were previously withheld or paid.
The 50% rule refund amount you pay back to combine your service could increase your overall pension over the longer term but the end result will depend on your career journey as an OMERS member. When you are considering whether to repay the gross amount of your 50% rule refund, remember that your personal circumstances and career goals are unique and all the relevant considerations for you may not be covered here. You can also call OMERS Member Experience for more information.
If you are interested in combining your service, it’s important to consider the questions below:
If you decide to combine your past and current OMERS service: The amount to be repaid is equal to the 50% rule refund (on a gross basis) plus applicable interest. OMERS will reach out to inform you of the total repayment required (i.e., the total 50% rule refund, on a gross basis, plus applicable interest.)
If you decide not to combine your service: Each period of service will be kept separate and will be based on your “best five” earnings during each period. You will keep your 50% rule refund. You will still have the opportunity to combine your service while you remain a working member, but interest will continue to accrue on your 50% rule refund. While your records remain separate, you will be considered a dual member.
Dual memberships most often occur when you are employed and enrolled in the Plan with more than one employer at the same time.
This can occur when you hold two part-time positions at the same time with two different OMERS employers or if your employment with your former OMERS employer ended after your enrolment date in the Plan with your current employer. The periods of overlap may include when you were not actively reporting to work with one of your OMERS employers but you continue to be paid or are otherwise still formally employed (e.g., taking the remainder of your paid vacation time at the end of your employment or receiving a salary continuance).
Dual membership records generally cannot be combined even if a member ends employment with one of their OMERS employers if there are overlapping periods of service.
Dual memberships may also occur when you work in two distinctly different positions for the same employer and these positions are reported to OMERS as eligible for separate memberships or when OMERS cannot combine your memberships because you did not repay a 50% rule refund.
Once you end employment with your OMERS employers, you will have separate benefits calculated under the Plan based on the credited service and contributory earnings on each record (i.e., the contributory earnings and credited service cannot be combined). In some cases, your NRA may also be different on both records (i.e., you may have NRA 65 on one record and NRA 60 on the other).
However, service with all OMERS employers will be counted on each record as eligible service for the purposes of determining early retirement eligibility.
In order to retire and start receiving your OMERS pension, members under the age of 71 must end employment with their OMERS employer.
If you are a dual member, you cannot start your OMERS pension if any of your memberships are related to continuous full-time employment. If you have ended all full-time employment with OMERS employers, you can start receiving your pension even while continuing in a non-full-time (NFT) role with an OMERS employer. In this case, OMERS will consider your NFT membership ended in order for you to collect your pension and no further service or contributory earnings will be recognized and no contributions will be collected.
Learn more about the benefits of your OMERS pension.
Learn how purchasing past service from a previous or current employer can help increase your pension.
Learn how 2013 benefit changes may impact your pension.