[citation needed] Calculating the income of a member of the military requires specific knowledge and expertise, as service members are paid in a number of ways, including basic allowances for housing, expenses, and their basic pay.
[7][8][9] [10] If retirement pay is determined to be at least partially a marital asset, DoD Regulation 7000.14-R Para 290601(C) (backed up by 10 USC 1447-1455) requires that division orders specify a dollar amount of award or a percentage of retirement pay with no offsets or set asides.
All three methods give the same result, and 6 years after they were published, the promotion enhancement set-aside was embodied in Federal law with NDAA 2017 Sec 641.
[12] More than 20 attorney guides, whitepapers, and spreadsheet calculation aids are available from 10+ years of research in this area by a PhD analyst.
The result is that many times the military member's promotion enhancements, due to sole effort after the divorce, are divided to the ex-spouse.
[14] For Reserve military officers, a retention benefit program was implemented providing possible early retirement if certain types of duty is done after January 28, 2008.
If a marriage was entirely prior to January 28, 2008, all of the extra checks should equitably belong to the military member, and a division order needs to state this.
[16] However, this does not preclude a state from ordering indemnity payments from a retiree who waives retired pay to receive VA disability after a decree of dissolution has issued.
Quoting three paragraphs from the King decision, "The substantive question in this case is whether the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act, 10 USC 1401 et seq., and the supremacy clause of the federal constitution, US Const, art VI, [**564] prevent a state court from treating a military disability pension as a distributable marital asset."
Thus, we agree with defendant that his military pension may not be considered "directly or indirectly" in the distribution of the marital property.