personal finance

5 financial tasks to do before December 2018 ends


There are a few important financial tasks you should complete before the end of the year so that you can ring in a hassle-free new year.

Here are five such financial tasks you must complete before the end of December 2018.

1. File belated income tax return (ITR) before December 31 to avoid higher penalty

If you are one of those taxpayers who have missed the income tax return (ITR) filing deadline, then you must file your belated ITR on or before December 31, 2018. This is because as per the new income tax law (Section 234F), a late filing fees will be levied on taxpayers who file their returns post the expiry of this deadline.

According to the current law, a fee of Rs 5,000 will have to be paid if the ITR is filed after the expiry of the deadline but on or before December 31, 2018. However, if the ITR is filed between January 1, 2019 and March 31, 2019, then Rs 10,000 will have to be paid as late filing fees.

Also Read:
What is belated ITR?

Therefore, to avoid paying higher penalty on your belated ITR, you must file it on or before December 31, 2018. Remember, for taxpayers whose income is not more than Rs 5 lakh, the maximum penalty will be Rs 1,000.

Also Read:
How to file ITR FY 2017-18

2. Get EMV chip based card

According to an Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular dated, August 27, 2015, banks are required to replace the magstripe (or magnetic stripe) based debit and credit cards of their customers with EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) based chip cards. The last date to comply with this order is December 31, 2018. Post this deadline, all magstripe based cards will be blocked.

If you still have not applied for the EMV based chip card, you better do it before the December 31, 2018 deadline or else your card will be blocked from January 1, 2019. Remember, the new EMV based chip card will be issued to you free of cost.

You can check if your card is EMV chip based if a chip is located on the face of the card on the left side.

Also Read:
How to get new EMV based SBI ATM card

3. Non-CTS Cheque will not be processed

According to RBI guidelines, banks are required to issue CTS-2010 compliant cheque books to their customers. However, if a non-CTS cheque was issued to the customer and presented to the bank for transfer of funds, then the clearing of the cheque (i.e., transfer of funds from the cheque issuer account to cheque receiver account) will be delayed.

As per the RBI directive, effective from September 1, 2018, the periodicity of clearing of Non-CTS cheque has been reduced to ‘once in a month’ which is second Wednesday of each month. However, after December 31, 2018, non-CTS cheques will not be accepted for clearing. This is also mentioned on the State Bank of India (SBI) website.

Therefore, make sure you do not issue non-CTS cheques after this date. If you have non-CTS compliant cheque book, you must visit your bank’s branch immediately and request for new CTS-2010 compliant chequebook. You can also check if your chequebook is CTS-2010 compliant by checking if ‘CTS-2010’ is printed on the left side of the cheques leaves.

4. Check if your SBI net banking is still active

With effect from December 1, 2018, SBI has blocked the Internet banking services of those customers whose mobile numbers are not registered with them. The bank had asked its customers on the ‘Online SBI’ website to register their mobile number with the bank’s branch so as to avoid the interruption of their Net banking services. If you are unable to access your net banking services, then you must visit your home branch or any nearest branch of SBI to get your mobile number registered with your bank account.

Also Read:
Your SBI net banking may be blocked from December 1

5. Claim for reimbursement from SBI Buddy app

SBI has closed its mobile wallet app, SBI Buddy, with effect from November 30, 2018. The mobile wallet app offered services such bill payments, recharges, and money transfers. If you were one of the users of the app and your money is still lying in the wallet, you can contact your nearest SBI branch to apply for reimbursement of money as per the SBI customer care.





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