A PF or Provident Fund is a fund wherein the employers and employees contribute a some and a portion of their salary, respectively, every year. The amount so accumulated is then distributed to each employee at the time of their retirement.
Whether you are a government employee or an employee of any other recognized private company, you will be giving a part of your salary to this fund, while your employer too will be contributing to it. In India, you get a tax benefit on your contribution to provident fund u/s 80C to 80U.
But most of the time people are unaware of their portion of the contribution to PF or some very significant details about it. Did you know that you can increase or decrease your contribution to provident fund? Yes, the law gives you the benefit to adjust your PF contribution during your service tenure.
Just like this, there are many other aspects and features of a Provident Fund that you may not be aware of yet. So we have just compiled all such informative and essential elements about PF that you must know.
- You can be allowed to withdraw the amount of money in your PF under certain predefined circumstances and some defined event in life.
- An employee can take a loan against his provident fund.
- The employee provident fund also offers unique features to provide capital to buy a house property. You can use 90% of the accumulated PF to make a down payment on your home while you can use your salaried account to make payment of EMI on a home loan.
- An employee can easily transfer his EPF if he switches to another company and the amount so accumulated will not lapse but will be transferred to his new company EPF.
- UAN or unified Account number is allotted to each employee that does not change even though you switch from one company to another. All your EPF related transactions of money accumulations or tax benefits will be dealt using this number only. Hence no matter how many companies you switch your EPF will remain the same, it will just be transferred.
- There is a Unified portal for all EPF members who can use it to view and get all information related to their PF scheme.
- You have to link your Aadhaar to your UAF before joining the unified portal to gain access to all your PF information in just one click.
How to withdraw money from your Provident fund?
Now, this is something every employee has to face. What you used till date was to run around one office to other, going to the state treasury for approvals, signing the application, etc. and still you didn’t know what amount you can withdraw.
But the Ministry of Labor and employment has made recent changes in its laws, and with use of the unified portal you can quickly check your PF balance and withdraw any amount that you need. Although the PF rules for withdrawal remains pretty much the same, there is a relief for pensioners.
- The ministry has now declared that all death claims will be cleared within seven days of such notice of the death of the employee.
- All retirement claims will be settled on the day the employee is getting retired from his service.
- Minimum guarantee pension of Rupees 1000 to every pensioner
- There is provision for group housing scheme for all EPF members
- EDLI max benefit limit has been increased for 3.6 lakhs to an amount of Rupee 6 lakhs.
- Facility of a mobile app to know status and balance of your claim
What you get with the new technologically advanced PF services
- You will be able to see all your provident fund transactions at one place
- Employees can get passbook of their PF account online
- Latest news and updates from the government are readily available on the website so that you will be aware of any changes in laws or any new rule being passed by the government regarding the EPF.
- All your transactions will be mapped every month
- You can easily apply for a loan on your PF account unlike earlier when you had to go office to office to get your credit approved.
