THE BYSTANDER

You left a job this year — resignation, layoff, or retirement — and your final settlement included leave encashment and gratuity. Now you're staring at the ITR portal wondering: where do these even go? Are they taxable? What if your employer taxed the whole thing? This is the guide for exactly those ten minutes of confusion, for AY 2026-27. The two questions, answered upfront Are they taxable? Partly. Both leave encashment and gratuity have generous exemption limits — ₹25 lakh and ₹20 lakh respectively for most private-sector employees — so for the majority of people, most or all of the amount is exempt. Where do they go in the ITR? The exempt portion goes under exempt allowances in the salary schedule; only the portion above the limits stays in taxable salary. Now the details, because the limits have conditions. Leave encashment: the Section 10(10AA) rules Encashment of earned leave at the time of leaving a job qualifies for exemption. (Leave encashed while still employ...

"Income up to ₹12 lakh is tax-free now" — you've heard it everywhere since Budget 2025. So you file your return with ₹9 lakh of salary and a couple of lakhs of stock market gains, expecting zero tax… and the portal shows a demand. Nothing is broken. You've just met the least-advertised fine print of the new regime: the ₹12 lakh rebate doesn't cover capital gains. Here's exactly how the trap works, who falls into it, and what you can still do about it. What the ₹12 lakh headline actually says For FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27), under the new regime, the Section 87A rebate of up to ₹60,000 wipes out the tax on total income up to ₹12 lakh — and with the ₹75,000 standard deduction, a salaried person is effectively tax-free up to ₹12.75 lakh . All true. The fine print: the rebate applies to tax computed at normal slab rates . Income taxed at special rates sits outside it — most importantly: Short-term capital gains on listed equity/equity funds (Section 111A)...

For decades, waiting 45–60 days for your full and final settlement was just "how it works" in India. Not anymore. Under the new Labour Codes in force since November 21, 2025, your wage dues must be paid within two working days of your exit — and from mid-2026, that rule carries penalties for employers who ignore it. Most employees don't know this right exists, and plenty of companies are counting on that. Here's what you're owed, when, and the exact escalation ladder when the money doesn't come. The new rule, in plain words Section 17(2) of the Code on Wages, 2019 — brought into force with the four Labour Codes on November 21, 2025 — says that when an employee is removed, dismissed, retrenched, resigns, or loses employment due to the establishment's closure, the wages payable must be paid within two working days of that exit. It applies to every employee regardless of salary or designation, and to every kind of exit — resignation and layoff alike. Th...

You changed jobs, and somewhere along the way a second UAN appeared. Now your PF is split across two accounts, your withdrawal or transfer keeps failing, Aadhaar will only link to one of them — and if the two records show overlapping employment dates, your next background verification could flag you for "dual employment" you never intended. Two UANs is one of those problems that's trivial if handled early and genuinely messy if ignored. Here's the complete fix. How you ended up with two UANs (it's usually not your fault) The UAN was designed to be one-per-person for life. A second one gets created when: You didn't give your new employer your existing UAN when joining, so they generated a fresh one — the most common cause, and often it happens because the joining form was filled hastily or HR never asked. Your old employer marked your date of exit late (or never) , so when the new employer tried to link your UAN, the system saw you as still employed el...

Your PF withdrawal keeps failing, and the reason is a single missing field: your old employer never told EPFO you left. As far as the system is concerned, you still work there — and employed members can't make final withdrawals. For years this trapped people into begging ex-employers (sometimes hostile ones, sometimes shut-down ones) to update a date. That era is over: you can now mark your own exit in about five minutes. Here's exactly how, plus the fixes for every wrinkle — wrong dates, recent exits, and disputes. How to check if this is your problem Log in to the member portal ( unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in ) → View → Service History . Each job appears with a date of joining and a date of exit. If the exit column against your old employer is blank , you've found the blockage — this single blank field causes claim rejections, blocks transfers to your new employer's account, and stops interest-free EPS service continuity from being computed correctly. The 5-...

EPFO rejects an enormous number of withdrawal claims — by many estimates a third or more of online claims bounce at least once — usually with a one-line reason that explains nothing. "Claim rejected: OTHERS." Helpful. This guide decodes every common rejection reason in plain language, gives the exact fix for each, and tells you how to resubmit so it doesn't bounce again. Step 0: Find out why it was actually rejected The SMS won't tell you. Log in to the member portal (unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in) → Online Services → Track Claim Status , and read the remark against the rejected claim. Also check the speed-post/annexure details if a physical rejection letter was generated. The remark is often cryptic ("certificate A/B not enclosed", "member details not matching") — find your remark in the list below. The rejection decoder: reason → fix 1. "Name / DOB / details do not match" (the #1 rejection) Your name, date of birth, or gend...

Your payslip shows PF deducted every month. Your EPF passbook tells a different story — contributions missing for months, sometimes years. This is one of the most common workplace money problems in India, it gets worse when a company is heading toward layoffs or shutdown, and almost nobody explains the actual fix. Here is the complete escalation ladder, from checking your passbook to forcing EPFO enforcement — in the exact order that works. First, confirm the problem properly Don't escalate on a hunch. Build a two-column record first: What was deducted: open your payslips and note the PF deduction month by month. Remember the employer owes two amounts — your 12% share plus their matching contribution. What was deposited: check your EPF passbook at passbook.epfindia.gov.in (log in with UAN and password) or on the UMANG app. Every month your employer actually paid appears as a line entry. Two things to know before concluding the money is missing: deposits for a given ...