Oct. 28, 2021 —
Reminder: If your retirement date is on or after 1 January, 2022, as of 1 November 2021, PPC/RAS will no longer accept Form CG-4700 as your application for retirement pay. Instead, please submit DD-2656 at least 90 days prior to your date of retirement.
We are pleased to announce that the PPC is changing from using the CG-4700 Form, Coast Guard, PHS, & NOAA Retired Pay Account Worksheet and Survivor Benefit Plan Election, to using the DD Form 2656, Data for Payment of Retired Personnel. This move from the CG-4700 to the DD Form 2656 will allow for more information to be immediately available to members (e.g., Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) and Blended Retirement System (BRS)) and for consistency of retired pay information across all the services.
Additionally, the DD Form 2656 is much more interactively friendly than our current form and it provides informational material (e.g., BRS Lump Sum information) that will help our members make informed decisions for future retirement planning.
This transition has just begun to occur and during the transition both forms are perfectly acceptable for use. PPC's Retiree and Annuitant Services (RAS) Branch has begun providing the DD Form 2656 to members who will be retiring in July 2021 but, again, either form is acceptable for use during the transition period. Members who have already submitted a CG-4700 form do not need to complete a new form. We hope to have the transition complete by January 1, 2022 and begin using only the DD Form 2656 for members who submit a retirement form after that date.
The Form DD 2656 is available at the following link:
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/forms/dd/dd2656.PDF
Many people will try opening a PDF form and find that they get an error that says "Please wait." This is not a problem with the form but has to do with the set-up of your computer's browser as the default for opening Adobe Acrobat forms. Many computers use the browser's built-in PDF viewer as the default for opening Adobe forms, but the browser's viewer cannot handle the macros built into the form. The simple solution to this problem is to save the form to your computer and then open the form by starting Acrobat Reader DC (from the start menu) and use it to open the form from its saved location. This should open the form in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC rather than your browser, allowing full functionality.
Note: We used the Microsoft Edge browser for this guide.
- Click on a form link.
- A message “The document you are trying to load…” appears instead of the form.
- Click on the Save icon.
- The file save dialog box will open.
- Select a folder, rename the file (if desired), and save it.
- Navigate to the folder where you saved the file.
- Right-mouse click on the file icon or name and select Open with > Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.
- Acknowledge any notices that appear.
- Fill in the form, saving it periodically. Save and print when completed.
The DD-2656 and other necessary forms are listed in the Retirement Package
and can be accessed online. Please complete the forms and worksheets legibly. We strongly recommend you fill them out online using the Adobe Acrobat program on the Coast Guard, PHS, or NOAA Standard Workstation. Completion of the Data for Payment of Retired Personnel Form (DD-2656) is mandatory to establish your account so you can be paid on time. The completed DD-2656 must be scanned and attached to a PPC Help Ticket to PPC (RAS) at least 90 days prior to your date of retirement.
PPC (RAS) is now accepting:
Forms can be found at: www.dcms.uscg.mil/ppc/pd/forms.
Coast Guard, PHS, and NOAA personnel with questions on completing the DD-2656 should contact PPC (RAS) via email to PPC-DG-CustomerCare@uscg.mil. Coast Guard, PHS, and NOAA personnel must not contact the Defense Finance Account Service (DFAS) for assistance or submit completed DD-2656 forms to DFAS. PPC (RAS) establishes and maintains retired pay accounts for Coast Guard, PHS, and NOAA personnel; DFAS provides retired pay support to members of DoD components.