Tax deduction for a cause
Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that the Government is willing to consider ‘approved’ insurance pension products to qualify for tax deduction on premiums paid, over and above the regular Rs 1 lakh limit allowed on specified investments. He needs to go further and actually put that in place in the tax code. The reason for it is not just the absurdity of maintaining unchanged a quantum of deduction reduced to irrelevance by high inflation in recent years. Even more persuasive is a second consideration that transcends individual taxpayer interests.