2023 South Carolina Code of Laws › Title 9 - Retirement Systems › Chapter 1 - South Carolina Retirement System › Section 9-1-1020. Employee annuity savings fund; deductions from compensation of members of System; employer to pay required member contributions on earnings after July 1, 1982; tax treatment; funding; retirement treatment.

The employee annuity savings fund shall be the account in which shall be recorded the contributions deducted from the earnable compensation of members to provide for their employee annuities. Each employer shall cause to be deducted from the compensation of each member on each and every payroll of such employer for each and every payroll period four percent of his earnable compensation. With respect to each member who is eligible for coverage under the Social Security Act in accordance with the agreement entered into during 1955 in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 7 of this Title; however, such deduction shall, commencing with the first day of the period of service with respect to which such agreement is effective, be at the rate of three percent of the part of his earnable compensation not in excess of four thousand eight hundred dollars, plus five percent of the part of his earnable compensation in excess of four thousand eight hundred dollars. In the case of any member so eligible and receiving compensation from two or more employers, such deductions may be adjusted under such rules as the board may establish so as to be as nearly equivalent as practicable to the deductions which would have been made had the member received all of such compensation from one employer. In determining the amount earnable by a member in a payroll period, the board may consider the rate of annual earnable compensation of such member on the first day of the payroll period as continuing throughout such payroll period and it may omit deduction from earnable compensation for any period less than a full payroll period if a teacher or employee was not a member on the first day of the payroll period.
Each employer shall certify to the board on each and every payroll or in such other manner as the board may prescribe the amounts to be deducted and such amounts shall be deducted and, when deducted, shall be credited to said employee annuity savings fund, to the individual accounts of the members from whose compensation the deductions were made.
The rates of the deductions, without regard to a member's coverage under the Social Security Act, must be the percentage of earnable compensation as provided pursuant to Section 9-1-1085.
Each department and political subdivision shall pick up the employee contributions required by this section for all compensation paid on or after July 1, 1982, and the contributions so picked up shall be treated as employer contributions in determining federal tax treatment under the United States Internal Revenue Code. For this purpose, each department and political subdivision is deemed to have taken formal action on or before January 1, 2009, to provide that the contributions on behalf of its employees, although designated as employer contributions, shall be paid by the employer in lieu of employee contributions. The department and political subdivision shall pay these employee contributions from the same source of funds which is used in paying earnings to the employee. The department and political subdivision may pick up these contributions by a reduction in the cash salary of the employee.
The employee, however, must not be given the option of choosing to receive the contributed amount of the pick ups directly instead of having them paid by the employer to the retirement system. Employee contributions picked up shall be treated for all purposes of this section in the same manner and to the extent as employee contributions made before the date picked up.
Payments for unused sick leave, single special payments at retirement, bonus and incentive-type payments, or any other payments not considered a part of the regular salary base are not compensation for which contributions are deductible. Not including Class Three employees, contributions are deductible on up to and including forty-five days' termination pay for unused annual leave. If a member has received termination pay for unused annual leave on more than one occasion, contributions are deductible on up to and including forty-five days' termination pay for unused annual leave for each termination payment for unused annual leave received by the member. However, only an amount up to and including forty-five days' pay for unused annual leave from the member's last termination payment shall be included in a member's average final compensation calculation for other than Class Three employees.
HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 61-62; 1952 Code Section 61-62; 1945 (44) 212; 1949 (46) 424; 1955 (49) 38; 1964 (53) 1843; 1966 (54) 2009; 1982 Act No. 315, Section 1; 1982 Act No. 349, Section 1; 1982 Act No. 372, Section 1; 1985 Act No. 201, Part II, Section 48A; 1986 Act No. 529, Section 1, eff June 18, 1986; 1988 Act No. 475, Section 2, eff July 1, 1988; 2005 Act No. 14, Section 3, eff July 1, 2004; 2005 Act No. 153, Pt II, Section 4, eff July 1, 2005; 2008 Act No. 311, Section 4, eff June 4, 2008; 2012 Act No. 278, Pt I, Section 4, eff July 1, 2012.