While some components are fully taxable, others can be claimed as tax-exempt if you meet certain conditions. Given an option, you would want to have a higher portion of the ones which can be claimed as exempt.

At present, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation invests up to 15 per cent of its investible deposits into the exchange-traded funds

EPFO provides an option to consolidate all your EPF balances which are lying in different member IDs. All contributions made in the past into EPF while in previous jobs can be transferred to the present employer's member ID. Thus making things less complicated for future reference.

At present, the social security contribution is fixed at 24 per cent ( 12 per cent employee contribution and 12 per cent employer contribution) of an employee's basic salary. 

Salary structure does play a role in reducing income tax liability for all employees. So, employees have a good scope of saving tax by tweaking their salary structure, in consultation with their employer.   

Several provisions in the Budget are a last-ditch effort to boost employment.

In his Budget speech this morning, Finance Minister mentioned the word employment 17 times.

The norms to withdraw Employees Provident Fund (EPF) have been relaxed further to enable members of the EPFO to withdraw money from their EPF accounts to fund the purchase or construction of house or flat or to buy land.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is making dedicated efforts to improve the experience of the EPFO members as far as provident fund withdrawals and claim settlements are concerned. To make withdrawals/advance processes more speedy and less cumbersome, the EPFO has recently taken the following measures.

Taxes are unavoidable but you can surely minimize its impact by filing the Income Tax return every year. Whether you have invested your money or made large payments against loans, travel or insurance it's time to look back at the year to maximise your deductions and thereby lower your tax burden.

Since the EPFO entered the equity market in August 2015 till June 2016, it has invested a sum of Rs 7468 crore in Exchange-Trade Funds (ETFs) with an absoltue return of 7.45%.

The package to promote the textile sector and bridge the export gap with competitors is a welcome step

Is your retirement plan on track?

Cesses will make many services expensive, but the real hit may be the tax on EPF, though there is no clarity on this front yet.

While NPS has been made attractive, the finance minster has also proposed to bring tax treatment of defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans at par.

The protests come after the government proposed changes in February to how employees can withdraw savings from the Employee Provident Fund (EPF).

Workers opposing amendment to EPF Act have expressed fear that the new rule would take away their right over employer's contribution portion of provident fund till they attain 58 years.