NEW RULES: From PF to new cheque book rules: 10 things that change this month

From costlier flights to the new ITR filing portal to gold hallmarking, let’s take a look at some changes that will come into effect from this month (June 2021)

Like every month, some major changes will take place from today, June 1. These include new cheque and PF rules to the pricing of the LPG cylinder. Taxpayers will get a new interface of the income tax department’s website to file their returns. Mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery will also be effective from this month. There are some other changes that will come into effect this month.

Here are the top changes that will directly impact you:

New Cheque rules

Bank of Baroda has made ‘Positive pay confirmation’ mandatory for its customers to prevent incidents of fraud during payments made through cheques from today (1 June). When the amount to be processed is more than ₹2 lakh, then only the customers will only have to make the reconfirmation of cheque details.

New PF rules

EPFO has taken a big decision regarding Provident Fund (PF), as from June 1, the employer has been given the responsibility to make your account Aadhaar verified. If you fail to do so it can lead to the stoppage of employer contribution credited to your account. Therefore you must link your PF account with Aadhaar in time.

Airfare hiked

From 1 June, flights within the country will become costlier as the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has decided to raise the lower limit on domestic airfares from 13 per cent to 16 per cent. Now, the lower limit for flights under 40 minutes of duration will be increased from ₹2,300 to ₹2,600 — a hike of 13 per cent. Similarly, flights with a duration between 40 minutes and 60 minutes will have a lower limit of ₹3,300 instead of the current ₹2,900.

Domestic flights of duration between 60-90, 90-120, 120-150, 150-180 and 180-210 minutes will have lower limits of ₹4,000, ₹4,700, ₹6,100, ₹7,400 and ₹8,700, respectively.

Google storage policy changes

Google is making changes to its online storage policy from 1 June. Any new photos and videos that will be uploaded on Google Photos will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage that the user has purchased as a Google One member.

Gmail

The free 15GB or the additional amount of data purchased is shared between Google Drive, Gmail and Photos.

Mandatory hallmarking of gold

Mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery will be implemented from 15 June; jewellers will be allowed to sell only 14, 18 and 22 carats of gold jewellery.

New website for ITR filing

The Income-tax department will be launching its new portal e-filing 2.0 on June 7 for the taxpayers. The new website will be replacing the existing portal called incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in. Ahead of the launch of the new Income Tax Department’s website, the e-filing services will be shut for six days between June 1 and 6. And, by June 7, the new e-filing web portal would be made operational for taxpayers.

Change in IFSC Code

Canara Bank informed its customers that the IFSC codes of Syndicate Bank will be disabled on 1 July 2021. The customers of Syndicate Bank have been told to update their Bank Branch’s IFSC code by 30 June. “This is to inform that after the merger of Syndicate Bank with Canara Bank, all eSyndicate IFSC codes starting with SYNB have been changed. All the IFSC starting with SYNB will be disabled W.E.F 01.07.2021,” Canara Bank said.

LPG Cylinder price change

The prices of domestic cooking gas vary from one state to another due to local taxes. The fuel retailers revise the prices of LPG cylinders at the beginning of every month.

The rate of LPG cylinders in India is dependent primarily on two factors — the international benchmark rate of LPG and the exchange rate of the US dollar and rupee.

Aadhaar PAN linking

The government has extended the deadline for linking Aadhaar with a permanent account number (PAN) to end-June. The government has made several extensions to the deadline since July 2017 to facilitate the linking of the two identity numbers. Linking of the Aadhaar number with PAN is expected to eliminate duplicate PAN numbers and help in tax assessment and administration.