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The Gratuity Act 1972, describes that the gratuity is payable to an employee after completing 5 years of vesting period in case of resignation, termination or retirement. However, the provision shall be done as per the accounting standard even if the Company has not completed 5 years of operations. As per Para 72 of Ind AS 19/ Para 70 of AS 15, Gratuity Provision shall be made even for service of less than 5 years.

Payment of Gratuity Act applies to your company if you have more than 10 employees. All companies having 10+Employees need to make Provision for Gratuity as per Actuarial Valuation method Projected Unit credit method (PUCM) to comply with AS15/ Ind AS19.

No, the actuarial valuation is not required for short-term benefits. In case, the benefit paid after 12 months, the actuarial valuation is needed as per AS 15 R / IND AS 19 accounting standard.

For SMC, the actuarial valuation is required but detailed disclosures are exempted.

Para 78 of AS 15 states that the rate used to discount post-employment benefit obligations (both funded and unfunded) should be determined by reference to market yields at the balance sheet date on government bonds. Similarly, IND AS 19 also prescribe to refer government bond yield to set discount rate. In order to set the discount rate, its critical to keep currency and term of the bonds to be consistent with liability duration.

In India, currently there are no regulations to keep fund to back the gratuity provision calculated by an Actuary. However, it is always encouraged to keep fund in order to pay off liabilities on time and to avoid/reduce interest rate and reinvestment risk. Further, there are tax advantages for funding.

There are three key factors which shall be considered to set attrition assumption: a) Company’s recent attrition experience in last 2-3 years b) Industry experience of employee attrition c) Management view on future attrition.

Even if the plan is funded and managed by an Insurance Company, still the Company need to get a separate actuarial valuation done. The reason being that an insurance company does not provide complete disclosures as required by accounting standard regulations and sometimes the assumptions are not fair and inconsistent with Company’s own experience.