Could The Employer Be Punished In Case The Remittance Of Contribution By Him Is Delayed In A Bank Or Post Office?

Every month the contribution made to your EPF account is reflected onto the EPFO portal. An employee can get the status of the contribution by login into the EPFO member portal through his/her UAN number. But what if you log in to your account and you find that contributions made by your company are not reflected in the account?

You would tend to ask the employer. If the employer is a knucklehead, then you would have to suffer the inconvenience to get the contributions done in time. So, it is obvious that you like to have some kind of compensation for the hardships you would have to follow. Could the employer be punished in case the remittance of contribution by him is delayed in a Bank or post office?

EPF is a provident fund scheme to which employees are subjected to when they enroll in an organization that is a member of EPF. For an organization to be a member of the EPF scheme, the organization must have at least 20 employees working for the company. Within the Scheme, You and your employer both pay 12 % of your basic pay to your EPF account.

Out of 12% of the employer contribution, 3.67% of the 12% goes into your EPF account directly. The rest is then contributed to the EPS scheme, which is 8.33% of the companies’ 12% contribution or Rs 1250, whichever is higher. This accumulates to a reasonable sum of money as you continue to work as salaried employees.

If There Is Delay In Remittance Of Contribution:

To get it straight, the employer can neither be punished nor be penalized in case of delayed remittance of contributions. You can only request the employer to give in contributions on time.  But you should be assured that your money would come into your account sooner or later. This can be worrying for you not to get the contributions in time.

This might get you thinking that the employer might be doing fraud. But remember in case you have your EPF account number and UAN number that has been given to you by the company. You would get your EPF contributions. And if you do not have the same, you need to contact HR in the first place.

The delay in remittance could be due to various reasons. Such as a temporary financial issue, where the company has used some money to expand its business. Moreover, there can be some legal issues that the company might be facing with their banking system. Also, they could have changed the contributions based on your revised salary, and that might be taking some time.

But you also need to be cautious if the delay stretches across the financial year. That is, if the delay in remittance goes beyond the time of filing of Return, then there might be some issue. Moreover, there might be a problem in getting the interest 8.55% (credited by the government) onto your contributions to your account.

Final Talk

Being cautious and getting regular updates onto your account is a good way to go. It provides you with a pictorial representation of the funds/balance in your account. This helps you to get an overview and prepare your future plans. But not having an instant reflection of contributions into your account might be worrying.

But remember, EPF is backed up by the government and there is no organization falling into the criteria of the EPF scheme that can deny you the benefits. There might be cases wherein the reflection of the remittance of the contribution is delayed, but you would get the same. And you can not penalize the organization for the delay.