EPFO Latest News: At present, to open an EPF account, it is necessary to have a minimum salary of Rs 15,000. Also, the EPF account of an employee of the same company can be opened where at least 20 employees work.
Do you work in a company with less than 20 employees? Are you self employed? So soon you are going to get good news. You can also open an account in Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) like employed people. Actually EPFO has proposed to connect all the people working in organized sector with EPFO and opening EPF account for those who are self-employed. For this, EPFO has suggested to abolish the salary limit of Rs 15,000 and to do away with the rule of opening EPF account of employees of a company with more than 20 employees.
EPF account will open even if you are self-employed!
Actually, at present, to open an EPF account, it is necessary to have a minimum salary of Rs 15,000. Also, the EPF account of an employee of the same company can be opened where at least 20 employees work. But after amending this rule, self-employed people can also open EPF account. So all the employees working in the organized sector, even if there are less than 20 employees in the company, their EPF account can be opened after the amendment of the rule. Along with this, self-employed people will also be able to open their EPF account. EPFO is in talks with the state governments in addition to the stakeholders regarding this proposal.
The number of EPF account holders will increase!
If the proposal of EPFO is agreed to, then the limit of salary will also end in addition to the headcount rule in the company to join EPFO. Doing this will help in increasing the number of EPF account holders to more than 5.5 crores. Along with this, self-employed will also be able to join the social security scheme. Not only this, EPFO will be helped to increase their fund corpus, after which they will be able to increase the investment limit in the stock market from the existing 15 percent.
Enrollment will increase in social security scheme!
Let us tell you that EPFO provides insurance benefits to the account holders for Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme in addition to pension through Provident Fund through EPF, Employees’ Pension Scheme. Social Security Code 2020 also has a provision to provide retirement benefits of ESIC and EPFO to organized sector workers, gig and platform workers. For this, necessary amendments have been asked through the notification.
