One HNI had Rs 103 crore in PF account, followed by another with Rs 86 crore held in such account, government sources said.

Income-tax slabs unchanged, but small taxpayers will enjoy procedural relief in filing ITR and resolution of disputes; High-income earners may feel the pinch though

While the expectations of the common man of tax relief are not met, the budget outlines measures to rationalise the tax structure and bring out changes in the tax processes

Union budget 2021: With this, EPF contribution no longer enjoys the Exempt-Exempt-Exempt (EEE) status, albeit for high income employees

Budget 2021: This will impact high-income salaried people using voluntary provident fund for tax-free interest. Individuals who contribute over Rs 20,833 a month to PF will be taxed

Union Budget 2021: Last year, the government had announced a slew of other measures for salaried class when the coronavirus outbreak began in the country. For instance, the Centre decided to pay 24 per cent to EPF account of employees till August 2020 for establishments with up to 100 employees

While the coming few months will show what shape the final codes and underlying rules will take, the government could certainly have taken a more progressive approach to the new definition of wages, to better address ambiguities and legal uncertainties resulting in fewer disputes and litigation

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) data showed that around 20 lakh jobs were lost in the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, thus, the government is targeting 50-60 lakh jobs by June 2021

The decision to divide the 8.5 per cent interest in two instalments was taken due to market volatility that affected the EPFO's income from equity investments

New labour codes severely reduce workers' security by increasing key thresholds for applicability of most protections; contractual employment has been expanded to add to workers' precarity and social protections for unorganised workers are vague

Soon after the spread of coronavirus, FM Sitharaman, in a relief to the employees and employers, reduced the mandatory monthly EPF contribution to 10 per cent of the basic salary from 12 per cent for the months of May, June and July

Earlier in July, provisional data had showed net new enrolments for the month April at 1 lakh which were revised down to 20,164 in August

Of the 10.4 million salaried employees who withdrew their retirement savings in this period, at least 8.2 million were those who earn less than Rs 15,000 per month

For years, job crisis has remained unacknowledged and un-remedied; the COVID-19 pandemic worsened it, but the government has no information on job loss or policy response to it, except for a few relief measures

After the announcement of the lockdown, the government anticipating cashflow problems of salaried employee allowed them to get funds from their EPF balance

EPFO has been releasing the payroll data of new subscribers since April 2018, covering a period starting from September 2017

The latest data from EPFO shows that only 321,800 firms paid PF dues for April to their employees. The number is 178,000 fewer than the companies that paid the said dues in the previous month (March, 2020)

The new EPF rule will benefit 4.3 crore employees and 6.5 lakh employers facing liquidity crisis due to coronavirus-led nationwide lockdown  

Fiscal impact, or cost to government, of the relief package for coronavirus - touted to be worth Rs 20.97 lakh crore - is in the range of Rs 1.5- Rs 3.08 lakh crore, according to top ratings agencies

The move will provide relief to about 6.5 lakh establishments covered under EPFO and about 4.3 crore such employees, releasing liquidity of Rs 6,750 crore to employers and employees over next three months