(PTI)
The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday decided that ministers will start paying their own income tax, ending a four-decade-old practice of the state exchequer shelling out the amount annually for them. The direction follows criticism in the media of a law enacted in 1981 which ensures that the state’s chief minister and ministers don’t pay any income tax themselves.
Instead, their share is shelled out by the state government under the Uttar Pradesh Ministers’ Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Act, 1981.After a news report made this revelation, several politicians said they were not even aware of the provision in the UP Act.Late in the evening, the state government announced that the provision will be scrapped.“UP chief ministers and all ministers will pay their own income tax. The income tax bill till now was paid through the state treasury,” Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said in a statement.
