Human Resources Compliance

Adhering to statutory compliances is necessary for all big and small companies in the world to keep their businesses safe from the legal trouble. A deep knowledge of statutory compliances is required to minimize the risk associated with the noncompliance of statutory requirements.

In today’s competitive and legal business world, it is very challenging for employers to manage statutory compliances without a good payroll management software. Each country has various kinds of compliance requirements. This blog discusses the statutory requirements for Indian payroll system.

There are a number of statutory requirements for Indian companies and companies have to spend a significant amount of time in their payroll management to ensure that they are compliant with the legal regulations. If companies fail to adhere to statutory compliances, they may have to face heavy penalties which are several times more than complying with legal guidelines.

The Statutory Compliances Required for Indian Payroll

The common statutory requirements that companies have to follow for their payroll management in India are:

Statutory requirements for Minimum wages – This act provides for fixing minimum rates of wages for skilled and unskilled laborers. It not only guarantees money for bare minimum survival requirements of workers but also takes care of education, medical requirements, and some level of comfort of workers.

The Minimum Wages Act being a state subject, the statutory compliance requires the payment of minimum wages to an organization’s workers spread out across different states.

Payment of ‘Overtime’ wages to workers is also a statutory requirement as per the Factory Act & Payment of Wages Act. It affects sectors like manufacturing & construction.

TDS Deduction – Every employer who is paying salary to employees has to deduct TDS under section 192 of the Income tax Act, 1961, if the salary is more than maximum amount exempt from tax. The employers also need to generate Form 24Q and Form 16 in time. Some of the salary components that impact TDS deduction are: HRA, Special allowance, Leave travel allowance, Children education allowance, Medical allowance, Investments.

ESI fund and PF deduction – ESI fund, maintained by ESIC provide the cash and medical benefits to employees and their families.

PF is a compulsory contributory fund for the future of employees after their retirement or for their dependents in case of their early death.

Professional taxes – Professional tax or employment tax is a state-based tax. It is one of the statutory deductions from the gross income before computing the tax.

Gratuity – Gratuity is the amount given to employees by employer when they leave the job after completing five years in service. Gratuity is calculated as Basic + DA divided by 26 * No of years of service *15.

EDLI – The EDLI (Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme) provides assurance benefit (death insurance cover) to employees along with PF benefit. The employees do not contribute anything towards EDLI. The employers contribute 0.5% of the total wages of employees subject to a maximum of Rs 15000/- . The charges and limits may change as per government notification, in future. EDLI applies to all organizations where EPF Scheme applies.

A quick compilation of the various statutory compliances in HR, are as

• The Apprentices Act, 1961
• The Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970
• The Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation Act), 1986
• The Industrial Disputes Act, 1946
• The Minimum Wages Act, 1948
• The Payment Of Gratuity Act, 1972
• The Industrial Employment Standing Orders Act, 1946
• The Employees Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952
• The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976
• The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948
• The Payment Of Bonus Act, 1965
• The Payment Of Wages Act, 1936
• The Factories Act, 1948
• The Employment Exchanges(Compulsory Notification Of Vacancies) Act, 1959
• The Trade Unions Act, 1926
• The Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923
• Inter State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment & conditions of service) Act, 1979.