3 money tasks you need to wrap up by today

Today is the last day of 2018. Before you get into party mode, it is important that you complete these few tasks in order to welcome 2019 in a hassle-free way. Here are three financial tasks that you should have completed before today ends.1. Replace your non-chip based card with chip based oneAccording to a 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 (i.e. non-chip cards) of their customers with EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chip cards. According to the circular, the last date to comply with this order is December 31, 2018. Post this deadline, all non-chip based cards will be blocked. If you still have not replaced your existing card with the EMV chip card, you better hurry up and do it now. Remember as per rules your card is liable to be blocked from January 1, 2019. As per the RBI diktat, the new EMV chip based card has to be issued to you free of cost by your bank.You can check if your card is chip-based if a chip is located on the face of the card on the left side.Also Read: How to get new chip based SBI ATM card2. File belated ITR today to avoid higher penaltyIf you are one of those taxpayers who have missed the extended income tax return (ITR) filing deadline of 31 August 2018 (except for Kerala assessees) , then you should file your belated ITR before December 31, 2018 ends. This is because belated ITR filed between January 1, 2019 and March 31, 2019 will invite double penalty. According to Section 234F of the Income Tax Act, a fee of Rs 5,000 will have to be paid if a 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. Therefore, to avoid paying higher penalty on your belated ITR, you must file it today. Remember, for taxpayers whose income is not more than Rs 5 lakh, the maximum penalty will be Rs 1,000.Also Read: Everything you need to know about ITR filing for FY 2017-183. Non-CTS Cheque will not be processedAs per the 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. According to the central bank 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. If you have non-CTS compliant cheque book, do not issue any cheques from that book and visit your bank's branch immediately to request for new CTS-2010 compliant chequebook. You can check if your chequebook is CTS-2010 compliant by checking if 'CTS-2010' is printed on the left side of the cheques leaves.

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2EY9Lvy