GST rate to the Medical Insurance policy of senior citizen bank pensioners
GST rate to the Medical Insurance policy of senior citizen bank pensioners
Retired bank employees are a lot who are deprived of pension updation unlike central and state government employees though there is a huge pension fund contributed by them. This is another sad story.
Our present grievance is about huge premium that the pensioners have to bear to the medical insurance scheme introduced in 2016. The yearly premium for the ₹3 lakhs and ₹4 lakhs policy keep increasing year after year. Presently the yearly premium is as under:
A. Without Domiciliary Cover (Option-1)
Plan Sum Insured Revised Basic Premium GST 18% Total Premium
Officers 4,00,000. 28,130. 5,063. 33,193
Staff 3,00,000. 21,099. 3,798. 24,897
B. With Domiciliary Cover (Option-2)
Officers. 4,00,000. 69,808. 12,565. 82,373
Staff. 3,00,000. 52,359. 9,425. 61,784
GST rate now charged is the maximum rate stipulated by the Government. Our previous Finance Minister, late Sri.Arun Jaitley had once said that charging GST to a BMW car and a bicycle at the same rate is against natural justice. Our plea to the Government is that the pensioners being pensioners only without any additional payout capacity, and any other social security cover, the rate of GST be reduced to the minimum rate.
Health insurance in India, in the absence of any social security umbrella from the Governments, is obviously a basic essential item and should rightfully and logically fall in the lowest GST slab. By bringing health insurance in the lowest GST slab ,we trust, the impact on indirect tax revenue to the government would be very marginal taking into account that 80D deduction is inclusive of GST paid on the premium. So we are sure that our plea may not be opposed by any GST council members.
On behalf of all the senior citizens and lakhs of Banks pensioners of this country, I humbly submit this petition to be considered favourably at the very earliest.