Under the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972, Gratuity is a sum of money paid by an employer to their employee for services rendered in the company for five or more years.

Gratuity is offered to employees for recognizing their services and can be considered as a benefit to aid employees after his/her retirement.

Gratuity Criteria

Gratuity cannot be credited as such, it is credited based on some rules and regulations defined by the central government. There are certain criteria that need to be fulfilled(either of them)  by employees to be eligible to receive gratuity benefits :

1. Employee must be eligible for superannuation
2. Employee is retiring
3. Employee is resigning after rendering 5 years of services to a single employer
4. Employee died or suffered from disability during his/her employment

As per the Payment of Gratuity Act, factories- mines, oil fields, plantations, ports, railways, motor transport undertakings, companies, and to shops and other establishments, Employing 10 or more workmen are liable to pay gratuity amount to their employees.

Other eligibility criteria are as follows:

• Payment of gratuity must be paid at the rate of 15 days’ wages for each completed year of service subject to a maximum of Rs. ten lakh. For the seasonal establishments, gratuity is payable at the rate of seven days’ wages for each season.

Gratuity Calculator

Calculating gratuity is not at all a difficult task. You only need to put a few values in the formula and you are done.

To calculate the gratuity of an employee, the following formula can be used:

Gratuity= N*B*15/26

Where

N= number of years of service in a company

B= last drawn Basic Salary+ Dearness Allowance

For instance,

An employee has worked in a company for 10 years and received Rs. 30,000 as his basic salary including dearness allowance, then,

Gratuity= (10*30000*15)/26

In the above formula, if an employee served more than 6 months in the previous year then it will be rounded off to the next number, and if less than 6 months then it will be rounded off to the lower number.

Few exceptional points:

• Gratuity can be paid more than the calculated amount as per the discretion of the employer
• Gratuity can be paid even if the organization is not part of the Gratuity Act as per the formula: Gratuity Amount= (15* last drawn salary amount* period of service)/ 30
• Gratuity in case of death of an employee will be calculated based on the tenure of service of an employee but subjected to a maximum of Rs.20 lakh

Taxation Rules for Gratuity

Taxation rules depend on the type of employee who has received gratuity:

• Gratuity received by any government employee is not liable for income tax
• Gratuity received by any employee covered under Payment of the Gratuity Act is exempted from income tax if:

• Amount received is Rs. 20 lakhs (maximum amount)
• Amount received is equal to gratuity amount

These taxation rules are defined by the Central government and one can go through the detailed description on the official website.

Gratuity Forfeiture

The employer holds the right to forfeit the gratuity of an employee either wholly or partially in case:

• Employee has been terminated for his/her disorderly conduct
• Employee had physically harmed another employee during employment

Automate Gratuity Payment

The importance of gratuity cannot be overlooked either by the employee or employer. To make your employees feel more valued, you must consider paying gratuity amounts to your employees when they are eligible for the same.

You can either calculate gratuity with a gratuity calculator or install HRMS software to your system for auto calculation and credit of gratuity amount as and when required. HRMS software offer options to pre-define the free gratuity limit, tenure for gratuity applicability, criteria for gratuity round off and much more. This software eases your gratuity-related functions and helps you increase the retention rate of employees.