The defence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's proposal to tax withdrawals from the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) in the editorial, "Provident budgeting" is difficult to support. The editorial does not look at the issue from the depositors' side. The EPF partially fulfils Article 41 of the Constitution that provides for "right to public assistance" in old age. It is a social security obligation of the state. Taxing withdrawals from compulsory deposits is unethical.
The editorial says the effect of the Budget proposal on employees will be marginal. If so, such tinkering is not financially sound, but has a huge political cost.
Taxing EPF withdrawals to allow banks to operate more easily is beyond reasoning, since taxpayers are already funding them to reduce their huge non-performing assets burden.
Y G Chouksey Pune
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