Compliance Calendar for Jan, 2018

Professional Tax – States – Remittances

Recent Important Labour Judgments – From the Court room

• Amount of compensation is to be based on an amount equal to 50% of the monthly wages multiplied by relevant factor. Surekha & Others vs. the Branch Manager, National Insurance Co. Ltd. 2017 LLR 1126 (S.C.)
• Proceedings under section 7A of EPF Act can well be equated for the purpose with a court, since the same are judicial proceedings. Amit Vashistha vs. Suresh and Another. 2017 LLR 1199 (S.C.)
• The EPF dues payable to the employees would be covered within the provisions of Societies Act and would get first priority. The dues of the provident fund have to be treated as dues payable to workmen and employees. Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation vs. Government of Andhra Pradesh. 2017 LLR 1226 (S.C.)
• Though application claiming gratuity is filed after 32 years on the death of the employee, but allowing the same by condoning the delay by the Appellate Authority is correct. General Manager, South Eastern Coal Fields Ltd. vs. Pritpal Singh. 2017 LLR 1143 (M.P. H.C.)
• Section 15(2) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 does not make any distinction between the application made for wrongful deduction of wages and the delayed payment of wages. M/s. Tayo Rolls Ltd. vs. Santosh Kumar Gupta. 2017 LLR 1141 (Jhar. H.C.)

Salary ceiling for claiming accident compensation

If any employee meets with an accident while on duty, how much liability can be fastened upon the employer? What will be the quantum of salary /pay to be taken into consideration for calculation of accident compensation?

The employees’ compensation act as amended has laid down that every employee or his dependents as the case may be will be entitled to compensation on accident as per the schedules.

In case the wages or salary of such an employee will be more than Rs. 8000 per month his wages or salary for computation of compensation will be treated as if he was drawing Rs. 8000 per month.

An Employer can reduce its EPF contribution to prescribed cap

While upholding the view taken by the high court, the supreme court has held that section 17(3) (b) of the employees ‘ provident funds & MP act is not applicable in the present case, consequently learned single judge has rightly allowed the writ petition and set aside the judgment of P.F Appellate Tribunal.

The respondent bank cannot be compelled to pay the amount in excess of its statutory liability for all the times to come. Thus the view taken by leaned single judge and affirmed by division bench of the High court is just and fair. Also, there will be no requirement to give notice for change to the employees under section 9A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

One Employee One EPF Account Facility to Consolidate Multiple PF accounts of an Employee

EPFO issued Circular regarding One Employee One EPF Account Facility to Consolidate Multiple PF accounts of an Employee and details as follows.

A Member has to provide his current activated UAN along with the current member ID & Mobile number registered at UAN Member portal.

On validating these credentials, EPFO will facilitate the member to register his/her EPF accounts. Members can enter details of as many as ten previous PF account numbers.

The earlier PF member IDs provided by members will be forwarded to EPFO field office to which earlier member ID pertains. The said facility is available to field offices at the MIS portal login >> UAN >> Previous Account Linking. An excel sheet has been provided which can be downloaded by field offices and used for the purpose of facilitating the consolidation of multiple accounts of a member.

The functionality provided to the EPFO field offices includes the feature to update the status in respect of the member ID. Accordingly, the field officers may mark the cases as settled or rejected. In case the member ID is marked as settled it is mandatory to put the claim ID with which the claim was settled. If case of invalid Claim ID system throws the invalid message and keeps the case as pending.

Need to correct DOB for a difference of 1 year In EPS ? do it using aadhaar!

The EPFO has issued circular relating to correction of date of birth in EPS, It is said that members who are having a difference of plus or minus 1 year can rectify it using aadhaar which will accepted by the EPFO as a valid Certificate of Birth.

For differences more than one year the members have to submit additional required documents like matriculation certificate, passport etc. to get their DOB rectified in their EPS account.

Please refer to EPFO office circulars ,further it is to inform that in the meeting on fraud analysis and management in EPFO held on 08.12.2017 at Head Office it was decided to fol low the following process for change of date of birth of members of Employees’ Pension Scheme 1995-

• In case the correction required in date of birth is upto plus or minus one year. Aadhaar will be accepted as a valid document for date of birth.
• In case the correction required in date of birth is more than one year, then in addition to Aadhaar, other valid documents will have to be submitted(viz., matriculation certificate, certificate issued by Registrar (Birth), Passport etc). The concerned member should be intimated for submission of additional valid proof of birth in such cases while applying online/mobile/offline.

How to merge two or more EPFO accounts

Merging accounts

To merge two existing EPFO accounts, the member must visit the EPFO website and under the “Services” tab, click on “One employee – One EPF account” button.

Details

On clicking the link, a form will open for consolidating multiple EPF accounts. The member must enter his mobile number registered on the UAN portal. Next, UAN and current member ID must be entered. On submission of these details, an OTP will be sent to the registered mobile number for authentication.

On entering the OTP, the page for entering old PF account details for merger will be displayed. Once the old PF account number is entered and the declaration is accepted and submitted, the request for merger of that account to the existing PF account will be sent to EPFO.

Points to note

• The account merging facility is available on three days after activation of the UAN.
• To take benefit of this service, the member needs to have his KYC and Aadhaar details updated and registered with the EPFO.