Atal Pension Yojana Big Update: Taxpayers Are No Longer Eligible for the Scheme!

As of October 1st, income taxpayers will no longer be eligible for the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), a universal social security scheme. According to a notification from the finance ministry, beginning on October 1, any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer is unable to join the scheme.

If a member of the plan who signed up on or after October 1, 2022, is later discovered to have paid income taxes on or before the date of application, the APY account will be terminated, and the member will be granted the total amount of pension wealth accrued up to that point, per the order.

In this context, a person who is required to pay income tax under the Income Tax Act as occasionally revised is referred to as an income taxpayer. The government is trying to better target social program schemes to the needy by limiting the number of beneficiaries.

The government has been working to wean economically wealthy families off of social welfare over the last few years so that money can go to their intended recipients more efficiently. The Fifteenth Finance Commission has also had this idea.

According to information from the department of financial services, the subscriber's nominee would receive the subscriber's pension corpus, as it had been at the time of the subscriber's 60th birthday, and the subscriber's monthly pension would be available to the subscriber and spouse upon the subscriber's death.

According to the department, in the event of the early death of a subscriber, the spouse may continue to make payments into the subscriber's account for the remainder of the vesting period, up until the original subscriber turns 60. The government will ensure the minimum pension.

The agency added that the central government would cover any shortfall if the accumulated corpus based on contributions produces a lower-than-expected return on investment and is insufficient to deliver the minimum guaranteed pension. According to the department, subscribers would receive improved pensionary benefits if the return on investment was better.