Three retirement vehicles, three very different liquidity and tax rules
NPS vs EPF vs PPF Retirement Comparator
NPS corpus at retirement
0
60% tax-free lump sum, 40% must annuitize
EPF corpus at retirement
0
tax-free if withdrawn after 5 yrs continuous service
PPF corpus at retirement
0
fully tax-free, EEE, but 15-yr blocks + ₹1.5L/yr cap
In today's money (inflation-adjusted)
0
real purchasing power after assumed inflation
NPS: highest potential, but 40% gets locked into an annuity
NPS lets you take 60% of the corpus as a tax-free lump sum at 60, but the remaining 40% must buy an annuity, whose future pension payouts ARE taxed as income — check the annuity rates offered before assuming the whole corpus is "yours" at retirement.
EPF is the default for most salaried employees
EPF is typically mandatory (employer plus employee contribution) for salaried employees above a salary threshold, with a rate set annually by EPFO (currently 8.25%) and tax-free withdrawal after 5 years of continuous service.
PPF's ₹1.5 lakh annual cap limits how much it can hold
PPF is capped at ₹1.5 lakh per year, so it can't hold a large monthly-equivalent contribution the way NPS and EPF can — this comparison caps the PPF contribution at that limit even if your NPS/EPF monthly amount implies more.
NPS modeled at your stated market-linked return, with 60% of the final corpus tax-free and the remaining 40% shown as its lump-sum value (not the resulting annuity payout, which is a separate, smaller, taxable income stream). EPF modeled at the current EPFO-declared rate (revised annually, currently 8.25%), fully tax-free assuming 5+ years of continuous service. PPF modeled at 7.1%, capped at ₹1.5 lakh/year regardless of your stated monthly amount, fully tax-free (EEE). Real NPS returns depend heavily on your chosen equity/debt/corporate-bond asset allocation. Not investment or retirement advice.
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