Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey has said that the GST revenue shortfall faced by the states is likely to come down with the improved collections in the last few months. He noted that January was the fourth straight month of over Rs 1 lakh crore tax collections, which is a sign of strong recovery. He also said the GST collections surged to an all-time high of about Rs 1.20 lakh crore in January, while the second-best was in December 2020 at over Rs 1.15 lakh crore. He added that the collections, which directly reflect the state of economic activity, had plummeted to a record low of Rs 32,172 crore in April 2020, after the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Finance Secretary further said that the Budget proposal of taxing interest on employee contributions to provident fund over Rs 2.5 lakh per annum is aimed at correcting anomalies and is based on ‘principles of equity’ and large depositors into the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) should pay tax on assured 8 percent return. According to the Budget, interest on employee contributions to provident fund over Rs 2.5 lakh per annum would be taxed from April 1, 2021.
Pandey said people with less than Rs 25 lakh annual income can continue to deposit 12 percent into the EPF without paying any tax. He also said ‘there were anomalies in the system ... There are some cases which are depositing crores of rupee into the fund and there you are getting 8 per cent assured tax-free return. This is a question of equity. This is against the Principles of Equity. If you have surplus money, you invest, but you have to pay tax.’
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