My pressure forced govt to relieve salaried class: Rahul Gandhi on EPF rollback

New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday welcomed the government's decision to rollback tax on Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawals and said that it was because of his pressure that the ruling dispensation provided relief to the salaried class.

"I told the government that they should not oppress the salaried-class. So, the rollback of the government is a good decision," Gandhi told the media.

"Whenever somebody is being oppressed wrongly or victimized, I tend to try and help those people. I felt that the salaried and the middle-class people were being hurt by the government. So, I decided to put some pressure on the government. I am happy that they have got some relief," he added.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced relief on the issue of tax on EPF withdrawals, which was proposed in the Union Budget on February 29, 2016.

As per the announcement made by Jaitley in the Lok Sabha, the common man is liable for no tax on withdrawal from EPF and other superannuation funds.

In the recent budget, the government has proposed that withdrawal in excess of 40 percent of the accumulated corpus will be taxed.

The Finance Minister made it clear that the aim of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is to create an insured India and presumptive taxes will benefit the small and medium taxpayers.

In his post-Budget 2016-17 interaction with industry chambers, Jaitley had pointed that the revenue department is doing an important job to make sure that people comply.