Archives for

Retirement planning

EPF & VPF Interest Rate raised to 8.5% for 2012 – 2013

There is good news for five crore subscribers of EPF (Employee Provident Fund) and VPF (Voluntary Provident Fund). EPFO has decided to increase the interest rate on both EPF & VPF to 8.5% for FY 2012-13. This was reduced to 8.25% for FY 2011-12 from 9.5% a year earlier. The cut in interest rate had [...]

Aadhaar from UIDAI now compulsory for your EPF Account

In a recent order The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has made it mandatory for new members to submit their Aadhaar numbers as part of the KYC (Know Your Customer) verification from March 1, 2013. This means that anyone joining salaried workforce needs to have Aadhaar number before March 1, 2013 or he might not [...]

Should you Invest in LIC New Jeevan Nidhi Plan?

LIC New Jeevan Nidhi Plan is a conventional with profits pension plan which provides for death cover during the deferment period and offers annuity on survival to the date of vesting. The term vesting has been used extensively in the article. For simplification vesting can be assumed equivalent to maturity of policy. LIC New Jeevan [...]

Tax Treatment for Various Financial Assets

Tax Treatment of Various Financial Instruments

Taxation on your investment is as important as the return on Investment. All financial instruments go through three stages Investment Earning Withdrawal The tax rules vary across the above three phases. This post would tell you how different financial Instruments are taxed in these three phases and what would be its impact on you. Based on [...]

Bajaj Allianz Cash Rich Insurance Plan – Review

Bajaj Allianz is heavily promoting its Cash Rich Insurance Plan as a retirement solution through all kinds of media. But does the plan do what it promises? Cash rich insurance plan is essentially a money-back plan that gives the flexibility to choose the premium paying term as well as the money-back term. The policy can [...]

EPF ePassbook: How to Check your EPF Balance Online?

Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has finally gone digital. Now you can check your EPF (Employee Provident Fund) balance online and generate e-passbook online. Here are 7 Steps to access your EPF e-Passbook: Step 1: Visit the EPFO members’ portal by clicking this link – http://members.epfoservices.in/ Step 2: Click on Register button at the bottom [...]

Employee Pension Scheme (EPS) – How good?

If you have looked at your EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) details you might have wondered about deduction of Rs. 541 per month from your company’s contribution to EPF. Here is the explanation: Every month you need to contribute 12% of your basic salary to your EPF account Your employer also needs to contribute 12% of [...]

GPF interest rate rises to 8.6%

After rate cut in EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund), there is some good news for all Government Employees. The interest rate on government employees’ retirement savings parked in the General Provident Fund (GPF) has increased from 8% to 8.6%. This is first increase after 2003. A similar rate hike has also been effected in a special [...]

EPF, PPF, NSC & Bank FD Interest rate 2011-2012

EPF & VPF Interest Rate for 2011 – 2012

EPF (Employee Provident Fund) Interest Rate has been declared today for Financial Year 2011 – 2012. The bad news is it has been cut by 1.25% to 8.25%. This is first time that the interest rate for EPF/VPF is less than PPF (Public Provident Fund) and would affect about 6 crores subscribers. Below figure compares [...]

EPF - VPF Interest Rate historical trend

EPF & VPF (Employee / Voluntary Provident Fund) Interest Rates

As many of you might be aware about the EPF (Employee Provident Fund) & VPF (Voluntary Provident Fund) Interest rates are decided by Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the government every year. For the last financial year 2010 – 11 EPF interest rate was 9.5%, a surprising bonus of 1% for all the EPF & VPF [...]

Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF) – A Good Retirement Option!

Retirement planning is one of the most important financial goals in life of a person. Most of us have heard about Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and (Public Provident Fund) PPF for building retirement corpus but do you know how can you leverage Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF) to add zing to your corpus? What is Voluntary [...]