'NPS suffering under new tax regime, needs tax benefit of Rs 50K under 80 C in Budget'

The pension industry has requested the government to restore the additional Rs 50,000 tax benefit for the National Pension System (NPS) under the new tax regime in the upcoming Union Budget as the incentives are critical to widen coverage beyond salaried Indians, Axis Pension Fund CEO and Managing Director Sumit Shukla told ANI today.

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Axis Pension Fund CEO and Managing Director Sumit Shukla

"Tax benefit of 50,000 under 80 C should come to NPS for new tax regime. The recommendation has gone from industry to government," Shukla told ANI in an exclusive interview, adding that "Today, NPS is suffering because we used to have 50,000 rupee tax benefit in old tax regime but that's gone in new tax regime."

He said that if somebody wants to open an NPS account and 50,000 rupees was given exclusively for NPS over and above 1.5 lakhs in Section 80C. However, in the new tax regime, that has gone away. So, any effort from the government side has to be backed up.

"And I think we would ask the government to look at bringing back that 50,000 rupees tax benefit which was available for NPS. And any scheme will become popular as more and more incentives is given to the customers to enroll for those accounts and open their account," he said.