Jaitley Rolls Back EPF Tax; Mamata, Rahul Claim Credit

After the finance minister announces the retreat, opposition leaders say it was their pressure that forced the government's step back

NEW DELHI: The Union government on Tuesday decided to withdraw its proposal to tax Employees Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawals above 40 per cent of the accumulated corpus. The Opposition claimed credit for forcing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to do a rethink.

Jaitley announced the decision in a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha.

The proposal not only had the social media abuzz in protest but triggered threats of protest by the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the RSS-affiliated trade union.

There were also reports suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised the finance minister to not just partially rollback the proposal but to totally scrap it.

Jaitley told the lower house, “In view of the representations received, the government would like to do a comprehensive review of this proposal and therefore I withdraw this proposal.”

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was the first off the blocks taking credit for the government's retreat. “It’s a big victory of the people,” she tweeted.

#EPFRollBack A victory for the common people. Happy that we were the first to raise this issue. Good

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) March 8, 2016