The Hindu Editorial Vocabulary– Mar 26, 2021; Day 22

Nearly all the Banking, Insurance, and Government exams have English as an indispensable section. The section checks aspirants’ grasp on a range of factors like vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension. While reading the editorials of a couple of good newspapers is an excellent medium to improve all the three aspects, it becomes at times boring as well. This happens mainly because of two reasons: either the subject is not interesting enough to keep you glued on the article or you stumble across a lot of new and complicated words which you don’t understand.

Generally, it so happens that if there is only one unknown word in a sentence, you kind-of get its sense by reading the remaining sentence. But if there are two or more words placed interwovenly, the sense of the sentence is generally lost and you need to use a dictionary and attempt hard to understand what the sentence is trying to convey. It is for this reason that we are coming up with this article to help you out with the senses of the difficult words used in the editorial of reputed newspapers.

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An unequal providence (timely preparation for future eventualities): On modified PF savings cap

Modified tax provision on PF income discriminates (make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people) against non-govt. employees

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has steered (If you steer people towards a particular course of action or attitude, you try to lead them gently in that direction) through Parliament the Finance Bill of 2021, which includes 127 amendments. Among the major changes is a tweak in the proposal to tax income on PF contributions over ₹2.5 lakh a year. Responding to MPs’ concerns on the tax, she said that nearly 93% PF account holders will be covered by the ₹2.5 lakh per year limit, while a mere 1% were abusing the system. Yet, she introduced an amendment doubling the threshold (the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain condition to occur) for annual PF contributions to ₹5 lakh, only for employees whose employers do not remit (send (money)) any contribution to their retirement fund account. For the crores of Employees’ PF account holders in the private sector, this ₹5 lakh threshold is a non-starter as an employer-employee relationship is an implicit (always to be found in) requirement to open an EPF account. While employees may voluntarily enhance contributions beyond the statutory wage limit of ₹15,000 a month and employers are not bound to match enhanced contributions, a ‘zero employer contribution’ scenario is not possible for EPF members. This suggests that only some senior government staff who joined service before 2004 and are not part of the NPS will benefit from this concession (a preferential treatment), as they contribute to the GPF account and get a defined benefit pension separately.

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In a country with a large informal workforce and sparse (thinly dispersed or scattered) social security systems, reasonable savings for retirement should not be penalised. But to give tax relief for such savings only to government employees smacks of (to seem to contain or involve (something unpleasant)) bureaucratic preservation of self-interests deriding (the expression of contempt or ridicule) an equitable approach to taxation. The least the government could have done was to offer the same cap of ₹5 lakh to EPF members, by including their employer contributions during the year. As things stand now, annual investments into the PPF that anyone can open, are capped at ₹1.5 lakh. Similarly, employee PF contributions beyond ₹1.5 lakh are not tax-deductible under Section 80C of the I-T Act, but income on such contributions beyond ₹2.5 lakh will be taxable and employer contributions into the EPF, NPS or any superannuation pension fund are capped at ₹7.5 lakh. And the income on GPF contributions up to ₹5 lakh would be tax-free. This dissonance suggests an unconscionable disconnect between policy makers and the aspirations of the working class to save for their sunset years. To top this off, the new Wages Code will compel employers to pay higher EPF contributions by linking them to at least half of their total pay on a cost to company basis, rather than 24% of basic pay presently. This will virtually force many EPF members into contributing over ₹2.5 lakh a year. This either reflects a lack of system-wide thinking, with two arms of the government working at cross purposes, or an ingenious ploy to stir up tax collections. With doubts on the implementation of this new tax yet to be addressed, the government must consider putting it on hold and think through its implications.

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