100 days of Modi 3.0: Tax exemption and UPS bring big relief to middle class

New Delhi|

In the first 100 days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new term, the central government has given great relief to the middle class people by bringing tax exemption and new pension scheme for government employees.

Under the new tax regime in the General Budget 2024 presented in July, the tax on income up to Rs 10 lakh has been reduced to 10 per cent. Standard deduction exemption was increased from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000, giving relief to employed people. The ceiling on family pensions was raised to 25,000.

Continuous work is being done by the Central Government to simplify the tax system.

After the budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that a new Income Tax Act will come in the next few months. Simplification of rules will be given importance in the new Income Tax Act. This will reduce tax litigation.

According to the Finance Minister, 72 per cent of the total people who submitted ITR have chosen the new Income Tax Regime.

7.28 crore ITRs have been submitted in the assessment year 2024-25. There has also been a big decline in the time of ITR processing in the last decade.

According to Finance Minister Sitharaman, now the average time for ITR to be processed has come down to 10 days, which was 93 days in 2013.

The Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for government employees has been approved in the recent Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Modi. This scheme will be implemented from April 1, 2025. Under UPS, central government employees can choose between Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

State governments can choose any of the three options for their employees along with the Old Pension Scheme.

Under UPS, if a government employee retires after 25 years of service, he will get 50 percent of the average salary of the last 12 months as pension.

The special thing about this scheme is that in this, fixed pension is given to the government employee. If the employee dies after retirement, his family members will receive 60 percent of the pension amount.

Lump sum amount will also be given on retirement in UPS. More than 23 lakh government employees will directly benefit from UPS.

In the first 100 days of the third term of the Modi government, the pension has been revised on rank basis in One Rank One Pension (OROP) for the Army, Navy and Air Force and other defense units from the central government. The new pensions have come into effect since July 1, 2024.