Your VA disability compensation may be subject to various withholdings and offsets. The most common offset is the VA waiver for military retirees. If you receive both military retirement pay and VA disability compensation, you generally cannot receive the full amount of both. Most retirees must waive a portion of their retirement pay equal to their VA compensation. However, if your combined VA rating is 50 percent or more, you qualify for Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP), which allows you to receive both full retirement pay and full VA compensation. Another common withholding is severance pay recoupment. If you received military disability severance pay when you separated from service, VA will withhold your disability compensation until the amount of severance pay has been recouped. This can take months or even years depending on the severance amount and your monthly VA payment rate. The recoupment only applies to the conditions related to the severance pay. If you received a separation incentive such as VSI or SSB payments, those may also be subject to recoupment. Additionally, if you were previously overpaid by VA, future payments may be reduced until the overpayment is recovered. You can request a waiver of overpayment recovery if repayment would create financial hardship.
Note: This article references sections of the VA's M21-1 Adjudication Procedures Manual. The VA periodically reorganizes the M21-1 and section numbers may have changed since this article was written. For the most current section references, visit the VA's public M21-1 Web Automated Reference Material System (WARMS).