Arun Jaitley drops the PF bomb, Narendra Modi rushes to defuse it

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown that he is the Boss by asking his FM Arun Jaitley to shelve the proposal of imposing income tax on PF withdrawals of the salaried class. The Prime Minister felt that the entire proposal should be deferred because, there were fears that such a step could rob the "feel-good" vibes that the government's third budget had generated.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 6 March 2016.

Euphemistically speaking - the government has had second thoughts and has decided to defer its plan to levy tax on 60% of employees' provident fund withdrawal because Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervened. It seems the PM requested Jaitley to put the tax proposal on hold since the matter needed to be studied in detail in view of protests from the salaried middle class. They felt that such a move would impact their retirement savings and restrict options, with many describing it as a regressive step.
Not only the salaried employees, there were protests from opposition parties as well as from within BJP - the net result was a well-planned retraction of steps. Or - was it a well orchestrated strategy to feel the pulse of the people and see how far they can be pushed?
This question arises because it is difficult to believe that the Finance Minister had decided on such an extraordinary step without consulting the Prime Minister - that is what a section of critics of the government might say. But - all is well that ends well and with assurances of satus quo being maintained, everyone can breathe easy now.
By the way - one would like to know whether the Black Money trail has dried up and, if not, what is the status of bring back the millions of rupees worth black money that was supposed to be retrieved.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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