PremiumAn EPF account becomes ‘inoperative’ if the employee does not make an application for withdrawal of the accumulated EPF balance, even after completing 36 months from the time of retirement after the member attains the age of 55 years
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My status is that of a non-resident Indian (NRI) since 2019. I was employed in India before that. My understanding is, as an existing Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) account holder, I can continue to maintain the account and earn interest on it till I am 58 years old. Can you please confirm this? Also, am I near the threshold for the account to be declared inoperative since there have been no contributions since 2019 and my status as an NRI (with no further interest accumulating on it)?
—Vinayak Kamath
According to the latest Employee Provident Fund (EPF) norms, an EPF account becomes ‘inoperative’ if the employee does not make an application for withdrawal of the accumulated EPF balance, even after completing 36 months from the time of retirement after the member attains the age of 55 years, or due to permanent migration abroad, or due to the death of the member or after the member withdraws all the retirement corpus. The balance in your EPF account continues to earn interest until you reach the age of 58 years.
I am an NRI and have proceeds of my matured Public Provident Fund (PPF) account into a Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) account, which I want to book a fixed deposit for the longer term. But NRO fixed deposits would attract 30% tax deducted at source (TDS) on interest. I wish to repatriate these funds back to my country of residence and then remit them back to Non-Residential External (NRE) and then book a fixed deposit to provide a source for my child education investment yearly premiums year by year. Please let me know what documentation is required?
— Rahul Joshi
You are allowed to repatriate money held in your NRO account after taxes have been duly paid on any income earned in India and credited to your NRO account. You are allowed to remit up to $1 million in a financial year. However, you can also choose to transfer directly from your NRO account to your NRE account. The same limit of $1 million applies for transfers from NRO to NRE account. Do check with your bank about the documentation they will require to make the transfer. Usually, this requires you to submit a Form 15CA and 15CB via a chartered accountant, as specified.
Archit Gupta is founder and chief executive officer, Clear.in.
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