Online campaign against EPF gains support, over one lakh sign up to seek immediate withdrawal

New Delhi: An online petition against retirement tax has received over one lakh signups seeking urgent and immediate withdrawal of EPF Tax within 48 hours after it was announced in the Budget. The petition was started by a finance professional from Gurgaon, Vaibhav Aggarwal, and over 1 lakh people have supported the campaign and it continues to draw thousands of signatures every hour. Meanwhile, facing flak for proposing a tax on employee provident fund withdrawals, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said he will spell out the final decision on the matter when he replies to the debate on Budget in Parliament. [caption id=“attachment_2653002” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representative image. Thinkstock[/caption] After Budget 2016-17 proposed taxing 60 per cent of the withdrawal from Employee Provident Fund (EPF) on contributions to be made after April 1, the government yesterday hinted of a partial rollback. “My Change.org petition has picked up like wildfire because it resonates with every salaried person who is already burdened with multiple taxation like income tax and indirect taxes. The government’s decision to tax EPF is a draconian move and a killer blow,” Aggarwal said. Vaibhav’s Change.org petition has been shared widely on Twitter and Facebook and continues to gather more signatures rapidly. “Vaibhav’s petition has drawn 1 lakh signatures in just 2 days. This is one of the most viral petitions on Change.org in recent times. We hope that the Finance Ministry responds positively to the concerns of all those who have signed this petition,” Preethi Herman, Country Lead of Change.org said. Meanwhile, a similar outrage was recently seen with Net Neutrality where a Change.org petition started by Kollam-based Sandeep Pillai gathered more than 3.75 lakh signatures and went on to become a victory. PTI