The month of September is important from a personal finance perspective, as there are five important tasks to be completed. In case you miss the deadlines, you may end up paying a penalty.
Here are some critical personal finance tasks to be completed before September 30.
Link Aadhaar to EPF
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (‘EPFO’) has been encouraging salaried individuals to link their Aadhaar to the employee provident fund account/Universal Account Number (‘UAN’), for security and transparency. Provident fund remittance will be permitted only for those employees whose EPF/UAN and Aadhaar are linked and verified. The deadline is September 1, 2021.
“You should link the numbers immediately. Otherwise, you will face the following consequences: no credit to PF accounts and delayed remittance, which could result in loss of interest to the employee,” says Homi Mistry a Partner with Deloitte India.
File your income tax return
As of now, the last date to file income-tax (IT) returns for individuals is September 30, 2021, for financial year 2020-21 (assessment year 2021-22). In the light of the COVID-19 second wave, it got extended from July 31, 2021. Due to the glitches in the income-tax portal, chartered accountants expect the deadline to be pushed further by at least a month or even till December.
But do not wait for that long and try to file your income taxes soon. If you do not file your income tax before September 30, then you will have to pay interest on the tax due. A late-filing fee of Rs 5,000 shall be payable. However, the amount of late-filing fees will not exceed Rs 1,000, if the total income does not exceed Rs 5 lakh in a financial year.
PAN-Aadhaar linking
The last date to link PAN card with Aadhaar is September 30, 2021. After the deadline ends, all the PAN cards which are not linked to Aadhaar would be declared inoperative. You cannot make any financial transaction if your PAN is not linked to your Aadhaar.
PAN card is mandatory for opening a bank account, buying mutual funds or shares, and even making cash transactions of over Rs 50,000. Financial institutions ask for PAN from their existing customers periodically for KYC purpose. If PAN is inactive, then the account could be impacted.
Also read: Don’t want your mutual fund SIPs stopped or redemption blocked? Link PAN with Aadhaar
A penalty of Rs 10,000 may apply as per Section 272B of the Income Tax Act if you fail to link the two documents by the deadline and your PAN becomes inoperative. It will be assumed that your PAN has not been furnished as required by the law.
You can link them through the e-filing website, by sending an SMS to 567678 or 56161 and typing UIDPAN or do it offline through PAN services centres of National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) and UTIITSL.
Update your KYC in demat account
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has announced September 30, 2021 as the last date for updating the KYC details in demat accounts of investors. The date to update KYC got extended from July 31, 2021.
According to a SEBI circular dated July 30, 2021, an investor has to update name, address, income range, mobile number, email id, PAN, etc. in the demat account. If you do not update all this information in your demat and trading account, then your account will be deactivated. The demat account will be activated only after updating the KYC.
Update mobile number in your bank accounts
To strengthen the safety and security of card transactions, the RBI has made the additional factor of authentication mandatory after September 30.
From October 1, for recurring payments through third-party merchant websites, the bank would need to send you a communication five days in advance and at least 24 hours before the payment date to your mobile number. This reminder tells you about an upcoming scheduled payment. It would also give you the option to opt out or pay the amount. If your bank has an inactive mobile number in its records, your auto-debit transaction will not get authenticated and bank account will not get debited.
Auto-debit mandates are given for loan EMI instalments, mobile phone bills, broadband, electricity, insurance premium, mutual fund SIPs, OTT subscriptions and other utility bills. These would get affected if you do not update your mobile number before September 30 to the complete two-factor authentication. If your subscription renewal amount is more than Rs 5,000, then your amount would not be auto-debited. For transactions below Rs 5,000 the recurring payments through cards will continue as earlier.
If your auto-debit transaction bounces or fails, your bank may charge fees on the auto-pay mandate. Even your credit score could get affected if credit card dues not paid. Your insurance policy could lapse if insurance premium not paid before the due date.
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