Jaitley now withdraws the EPF Proposal, apparently. This was part of his speech in the Parliament today.
Our View
We had a quick periscope on what we thought:
LIVE on #Periscope: EPF Tax removed by Arun Jaitleyt https://t.co/HaI6Vh79An
— Deepak Shenoy (@deepakshenoy) March 8, 2016
We think the EPF Tax is gone for now, but they will review the concept and come back. The review is intended to push people into a pensioned retirement rather than a lumpsum withdrawal and therefore this tax can come back in different ways. The fight isn’t over. The change will however be a relief to people who can’t change their PF contributions because the companies they work in don’t know how to switch the contribution amounts.
The other thing: Even the employer contribution being limited to Rs. 150,000 for non-taxability has been removed. (Para 139 in the speech). So employers can put any amount (limited to 12% of basic salary) and that will remain non taxable, apparently.
The battle has been won, for today. But in the long term we should expect that if it’s not taxed going in, it will be taxed at exit. But at least this year, EPF remains “EEE”, like PPF, ELSS and PPF.
