Last Updated on March 14, 2023 by Neelam Singh
Quick Take
A letter on the social media website claims that the central government has proposed a five per cent tax on all healthcare services in this year’s Union Budget. We fact-checked and found the claim to be False.
The Claim
A Twitter post claims that Dr Devi Shetty wrote a letter to the public regarding the proposal of a five per cent service tax on healthcare services in this year’s Union Budget. The social media post titled ‘A letter to the Aam Aadmi: About Misery Tax’.
The post has been shared by the Karnataka Congress SevaDal (Twitter handle: @SevadalKA) on February 26, 2023.
The post has been embedded below:
Fact Check
Has the Indian government imposed a five per cent service tax on healthcare services in 2023?
No. The Indian government has not imposed a five per cent service tax on healthcare services in the year 2023. We ran a keyword search on Google and found evidence that shows Dr Devi Shetty, Founder of Narayana Health, wrote this open letter in 2011.
To understand the reason why Dr Shetty wrote this letter, we researched the www.indiabudget.gov.in website and found the 2011 Union Budget speech by then Finance Minister Pranav Mukherjee which mentions that a five per cent service tax was indeed added to healthcare services. As per the letter by Dr Shetty, a person looking for a treatment for certain health condition has to pay an amount as service tax on top of the total hospital bill.
Dr Devi Shetty wrote that the proposal is not a service tax but a misery tax urging people to observe March 12 as ‘misery day’ to protest against the healthcare tax.
However, evidence also shows that the proposal was withdrawn after receiving criticism from the mass. After the criticism, in July 2017 service tax got replaced by the goods and services tax (GST). We further researched and found that in July 2022, five per cent GST was imposed on non-ICU hospital rooms with rent above Rs 5000 per day.
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