The government is considering to allow self-employed person to get enrolled under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) by contributing 10% of their income to the provident fund every month.
A person known the matter told, “The proposal, being deliberated upon by the ad-hoc committee on EPFO expansion, is expected to benefit 15 million self-employed people in the country.” However, the decision on the proposal will be taken by the central board of trustees of EPFO.
Government may come up with an entirely new scheme or include a provision in the existing EPFO scheme that allows self-employed workers to avail of the benefits of provident fund and pension, the person added.
The rate of contribution, however, could be subject to an income ceiling. The contributions made by the self-employed may not be part of the corpus built over several decades through employee-employer contribution under the existing Act.
Even the returns on such deposits from individuals or the self-employed may vary from the returns on EPFO investments as on date. The EPFO had announced an interest rate of 8.1% for 2021-22.
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