Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 03: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) opened an amnesty window for PF Trusts. These Trusts should be recognised under Income Tax Act, 1961, but without the formal exemption under Section 17 of EPF& MP Act, 1952.
EPFO has now introduced a one-time opportunity for regularisation of exemption status of Provident Fund (PF) Trusts. The organisation has released the operational guidelines for Amnesty provisions. The Amnesty provisions will be valid for a period of six months from the date of notification i.e. up to 28.12.2026.
The Amnesty scheme will provide retrospective regularization of exempt status and other key benefits that will accrue to PF Trusts. These include waiver of certain requirements like minimum employee headcount, corpus size and 3-year compliance rule that are under the CoSS, 2020. Post regularization on retrospective basis, an establishment may choose to comply either as an exempt or an unexempt establishment.
Additionally, EPFO has reached out to the Income tax department seeking details of PF Trusts recognized under the Income Tax Act, requesting for undertaking corresponding check of an establishment’s status of coverage and exemption under the EPF&MP Act, 1952 or CoSS, 2020 before granting recognition under the IT Act, or withdrawing of existing recognition of PF Trusts which do not have formal exemption order from EPFO.
EPFO has reached out to professional bodies like the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), whose members (CAs) undertake statutory or Income Tax audit of several establishments including in many cases where such establishments have formed PF Trust Funds and are in a good position to identify PF Trusts that can potentially avail the Amnesty scheme.
