As many of you already know, last summer Congress extended the law that would compensate servicemembers for the months that they were held beyond their ETS date under a stop loss order to anyone held under stop loss past 9/11/2001.
Effective October 21, 2009, the $500 allowance will be paid for each month or any portion of a month during which someone was held on active duty by Stop Loss orders after September 11, 2001. Payments will be tax free for any month a servicemember was in a combat zone, but taxes will apply if the time covered a full month outside a combat zone. If a servicemember has since died, payments will be made to the survivors. No payments will be made to anyone discharged or released under other-than-honorable conditions.
Today, the Army has announced that it will begin receiving applications online from soldiers, retirees, and veterans who are eligible to receive the back payment. According to the Department of Defense, there are approximately 140,000 soldiers who may qualify for this payment.
Starting today, current and former soldiers can go to https://www.stoplosspay.army.mil [1] to file for their lump sum payment and have until October 21, 2010 to apply.
According to the Army Times [2], Soldiers and former soldiers qualify for retroactive stop-loss pay if they were retained on active duty beyond:
Links:
[1] https://www.stoplosspay.army.mil/
[2] http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/army_stoploss_101809w/