Age is just a number

Since 2005, all senior taxpayers – and specially the salaried class – are allowed a tax rebate for contributions made by them to an approved pension fund under the Voluntary Pension System Rules issued by the Ministry of Finance. The tax rebate starts at the age of forty, increasing with age. There is, however, a serious anomaly in the rules which discriminates severely against the people who have by the grace of God attained the age of seventy years and are still working. The rules, as presently drafted, define retirement age as “any age between sixty and seventy years or twenty-five years since the age of first contribution to a pension fund, whichever is earlier”. Constrained by this rule, the pension funds refuse to accept contributions from taxpayers once they reach the age of seventy, even though they are perfectly willing and able to do so. This means that, on the one hand, the economy loses the benefit of their investment and, at the same time, senior citizens are denied a tax benefit which was available to them in full when they were younger.

This happens because for some reason, retirement age has been limited to the age of seventy, under the assumption that no reasonable person could ever be expected to continue to work beyond this age. The fact is that in this day and age, people can continue to work productively and support their families much beyond seventy and even eighty years. The anomaly can be corrected easily. All that is required is to replace the words “between sixty and seventy years” in Clause 17 of the Voluntary Pension System Rules, 2005 by the words “after sixty years”. This will allow all the senior citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of their age, to share the benefits of pension fund schemes.

Saeed Haider

Karachi