‘I got government to roll back EPF tax’

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in the Lok Sabha that the Union Budget proposal for levying interest on Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is being withdrawn. ‘’It is a good decision. I had called on the government that they should not oppress the salaried class people. I felt that the middle-class people were being hurt by the government. So, I decided to put some pressure on it. I am happy that they’ve got some relief,’’ Rahul Gandhi told reporters here. 

The Congress vice-president said that he and the Congress have been fighting for the rights of the poor and the underprivileged sections in the country. ‘’Whenever somebody is being oppressed wrongly or victimised, I tend to try and help those people,’’ he said. During his recent speech in Parliament, he had expressed his opposition to the Budget proposal to levy tax on withdrawals from the EPF. 

In Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that EPF rollback was a “victory for the common people”. “EPFRollBack A victory for the common people. Happy that we were the first to raise this issue. Good,” she tweeted.