EPS Higher Pension: After the decision of the Supreme Court, the government has issued a circular to give higher pension from EPS, as well as you will get its online facility soon.
Employees Provident Fund Higher Pension: Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) in the country has announced to provide online application form for getting Higher Pension. EPFO is soon going to start online facility for submission of application in 2 or 3 days. EPFO itself has announced this. The last date for submission of applications for employees to get more pension is 3 March 2023. Which can be extended further. Know what is the new update.
Action after Supreme Court’s decision
EPFO has issued a message on its website that the online facility is going to start soon. It is not yet clear from which date this facility will start. After the decision of the Supreme Court in the matter of Special Leave Petition of the year 2019, online facility will be provided soon for filing joint option for the employees.
Facility will be available on account opening
Recently, the Modi government at the Center (Modi Govt) had started a new scheme to give more pension to EPFO account holders. The government had approved this scheme after the order of the Supreme Court. Under the Employees’ Pension Scheme, those who open an account after the year 2014 will get a new facility. In this new facility, the employees who had not opted for higher pension till August 31, 2014, are going to get this facility.
Benefits of avoiding higher pension
As per the Supreme Court judgement, employees, who were members of the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) as on 1 September 2014, will get an option to opt for higher pension based on their actual salary instead of the statutory wage limit of Rs 15,000. EPFO’s guidelines of February 20 said that eligible employees who had not opted for higher pension under EPS earlier can do so now. However, there are some reasons that you should avoid opting for higher pension. Know what is the reason
- The biggest drawback of opting for higher pension is that a part of your EPF corpus will be reallocated to the EPS scheme from the date of joining, to get higher pension. Transferring EPF money to EPS will reduce the benefit of compounding you have earned over the years as an EPF member. So, before going for the higher pension option, you should do the assessment.
- All the money in PF account is yours. In case of your death, the entire amount is given to your nominee. But on death under EPS, your spouse will get only 50% of the pension. There will be no lump sum payment in EPS. Therefore, you should consider once for higher pension.
- EPS does not provide any lump sum payment. It gives you pension on the basis of your accumulated corpus. Instead of opting for higher pension under EPS, you can invest in other options like NPS which will provide market linked returns and lump sum amount to buy annuity at retirement. In NPS, you will get the benefit of an additional deduction of Rs 50,000 over and above the deduction of Rs 1.5 lakh under Section 80C of Income Tax.
- There is no flexibility in the EPS scheme. Also, the interest earned on EPS amount is not the same as that of EPF, which is generally higher.
- For those who are planning to retire early, it would not be a good idea to opt for higher pension of EPFO as 1 person becomes eligible for pension under EPS only after completing 10 years of service and 58 years of age Is.
