While presenting the General Budget 2016-17 in Lok Sabha today, the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley said that pension schemes offer financial protection to senior citizens. He proposed to make withdrawal up to 40% of the corpus at the time of retirement tax exempt in the case of National Pension Scheme(NPS). In case of superannuation funds and recognized provident funds, including EPF, the same norm of 40% of corpus to be tax free will apply in respect of corpus created out of contributions made after 1.4.2016. Further, the annuity fund which goes to the legal heir after the death of pensioner will not be taxable in all three cases.

He also proposed a monetary limit for contribution of employer in recognized Provident and Superannuation Fund of ₹ 1.5 lakh per annum for taking tax benefit.

He proposed to exempt from service tax the Annuity services provided by the National Pension Scheme (NPS) and Services provided by EPFO to employees. Also, he proposed to reduce service tax on Single premium Annuity (Insurance) Policies from 3.5% to 1.4% of the premium paid in certain cases.

Pension tax exemption introduced for partial corpus withdrawals; employer contribution limit and service tax relief for annuities follow. Proposals change tax treatment of retirement benefits: a tax exemption for partial withdrawal of pension corpus at retirement under NPS and a corresponding 40% tax free corpus treatment for superannuation and recognized provident funds (for contributions after 1 April 2016); annuity payments passing to legal heirs will be non taxable; employer contributions to recognized provident and superannuation funds will be subject to a monetary ceiling for tax benefit; and service tax relief is proposed for NPS annuity services, EPFO services and certain single premium annuity policies.