Atal Pension Yojana Rules Changed: Taxpayers Barred From Enrolling In Scheme — Here's Why

In order to ensure better targeting of pension benefits to underserved sections of the population, the Union Finance Ministry on Thursday announced that all Income Tax payers in the country will not allowed to enrol themselves in the government's social security scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) from October 1. Launched in June, 2015, the APY scheme aims to provide social security to workers mainly in the unorganised sector. 

"... from 1st October,2022, any citizen who is or has been an income tax payer, shall not be eligible to join APY," the Finance Ministry said in a notification earlier in the day.

"From 01.10.2022 income tax payers shall not be eligible to join APY. Amendment in APY for better targeting of pension benefits to underserved section of population. Effective in prospective manner from 1st Oct. Income tax payer enrolled before 1st Oct to continue in the scheme," the Department of Financial Services said in a tweet.

From 01.10.2022 income-tax payers shall not be eligible to join APY. Amendment in APY for better targeting of pension benefits to underserved section of population. Effective in prospective manner from 1st Oct. Income-tax payer enrolled before 1st Oct to continue in the scheme.

— DFS (@DFS_India) August 11, 2022

Under the Atal Pension Yojana, beneficiaries get a minimum guaranteed pension ranging between Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per month after attaining 60 years of age depending on their contributions.

The notification also stated that in case a subscriber, who joined on or after October 1, 2022, is subsequently found to have been an income tax payer on or before the date of application, the APY account shall be closed and the accumulated pension wealth till date would be given to the subscriber.

Prior to the notification, every Indian citizen between the age group of 18-40 years was eligible to enroll in the APY scheme eihter through a bank or post office branches where one has the savings bank account.

According to government data, over 99 lakh APY accounts were opened during the last financial year, taking the total number of subscribers to 4.01 crore at the end of March 2022.

Until the recent notification, Central government had co-contributed 50 per cent of the total contribution or Rs 1,000 per annum, whichever is lower, to each eligible subscribers, who enrolled themselves during the period from June 2015 to March 2016.

However, only those were allowed to enroll themselves in the scheme who were not a beneficiary of any social security scheme and also not an income tax payer. Under the income tax law, people having taxable income of up to Rs 2.5 lakh are not required to pay income tax.

(With inputs from PTI.)