Puducherry: There is an attempt to mislead people by claiming that consumers are being charged a separate tax in the matter of payments made through UPI. This is regrettable.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that it is one hundred percent true that this charge will not be imposed on consumers. In Puducherry, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated a literary festival called ‘Bharat Sakthi Pandi Lit Fest-2026’.
In the subsequent event, Professor Anand Ranganathan of Jawaharlal Nehru University raised questions about UPI to the Union Minister, to which Nirmala Sitharaman replied: The UPI issue saddens me.
It is neither a tax nor an additional charge. The fee collected does not go into India’s Consolidated Fund.
The report of the committee comprising members of parliamentary standing committees from all parties has been submitted to Parliament; it was not leaked in secret, but is a report already in the public domain.
There are attempts to mislead people by claiming that UPI is a tax and that, as a result, poor people will be affected.
This fee will not be passed on to consumers. For transactions below Rs. 2,000, no fee will definitely be charged.
For transactions above Rs. 2,000, the fee charged is a matter between the merchant and the bank providing the service. They collect it, keep it, and share it among themselves. The government has no role in this.
This is needed to continue maintaining the UPI service and to develop competitive technology.
International credit cards still charge fees even today. We, as consumers, pay them. In the case of UPI, it is 100 percent true that such a fee is not imposed on consumers.
This is not a tax, nor is it money that comes to me. On the basis of mere speculation or a superficial assumption, this should not be regarded as a “tax” or as “the government imposing more and more taxes.”
Under the Prime Minister’s leadership, tax reduction measures have been undertaken. In 2019, corporate tax and income tax rates were reduced; most recently, there was a major reduction in income tax.
Therefore, we have not increased any tax. Some in the market may say that the securities transaction tax has been increased; but that applies only to specific trading preferences, not to cash transactions; this is known to everyone.
So, he said that we are not raising taxes; rather, we are improving operational efficiency.
