Whenever an employee changes a job he does not claim or transfer the PF deductions going into his EPF account. An employee does not follow up because of the perceived hassles and trips to the EPF office and his previous employer. This has left the EPFO with a huge number of accounts as inoperative. As per the rules of Government of India, EPFO classifies an EPF account as inoperative or dormant in case it does not receive any contributions from the employee/employer for 36 consecutive months. Such accounts do not receive any interest. Dormant EPF accounts now together hold Rs. 26,496 Cr in crores of such accounts. Finance Minister Sri Arun Jaitley in the budget of 2015-16 has proposed to use this unclaimed amount for creating Senior Citizen Welfare Fund. Once these funds are appropriated for this purpose then none of the employees who hold money in these dormant EPF can claim anything.
Reclaim your EPF Account Money
In order to facilitate easy withdrawal of this amount EPFO has launched a online helpdesk earlier this year which will allow transfer of this amount directly into the active account of the beneficiary. This facility will make it easy for the employees to claim the money the back into there account. Even if you do not have your PF number, EPFO office will try to find out the PF number with the details provided by you. A reference ID will be created at the end of the below process which you have to keep with you. Once the local EPFO finds an account which matches closely with the details mentioned by you then you will contacted by the local EPF officials for processing and transferring the amount into your account.
Please follow the below mentioned steps to reclaim your EPF funds today.
Step 1: Visit www.epfindia.com and click on Inoperative A/c helpdesk as shown below on the homepage
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| EPF India |
Step 2: The following window will show a form wherein you have to enter the reason for the EPF account becoming dormant.
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| Dormant EPF Account |
Step 3: On clicking next you have to enter the details in the form as shown below which helps the EPF officials to locate your PF account. You can also search for the Establishment Code of your former employer on this page. In case the code is not available with you click on "Search Establishment" on the right side of the column.
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| Claim EPF Money |
Step 4: Once you have selected your employer you can proceed further to enter your Personal Information in the form as shown below which will help EPF officials to locate your PF account. It is necessary that you enter your Name (as mentioned in the PF account), Date of Birth and Mobile Number. This information is mandatory in order to track your PF account.
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| Personal Details Form |
Dormant EPF Account Status
Once you have completed the form as shown above, click on Generate Pin. This will send a PIN to the mobile number entered by you. After entering the PIN number of the screen a Reference no will be generated by the system for your application. Save this reference number for all future correspondence with EPFO.
You can check the status of your application with the Reference no. online. Visit the web page as mentioned in Step 2 above to check the status of your application by clicking the link shown in the below image.
Enter the Reference Number and mobile number as shown below to check the status of your application online.
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| EPF Status |
If you have not saved your reference number then you can obtain it by entering your mobile number and date of birth.
Once the above form is submitted this information is sent to Regional EPFO office for further processing. If the information regarding the establishment code of the former employer is not submitted then the Central EPFO office will contact you to obtain further information about the account. They will then pass this information to the local EPFO office for locate your inoperative EPF account. A representative will then get in touch with you personally and thus it is necessary that you provide your own mobile number since if no response is received your application will be closed by the deparment.
EPF account is an EEE account which stands for Exempt-Exempt-Exempt. It implies that you can claim tax deduction of deposit under section 80c, you don't pay tax on interest and do not pay tax on withdrawal (if the account is 5 years old).
We hope this article helps you to withdraw your life savings from the dormant EPF account. Do revert back with your queries and experiences in the comment box below.
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