The government is planning to bring in new rules under which it will give employees an option of reducing their contributions for creating their retirement fund. At present it is mandatory for an employee to contribute 12 per cent of his or her basic salary for building Employees Provident Fund (EPF) corpus. The employer also contributes 12 per cent of the employee’s salary towards EPF. In a candid interview with Ashfaque Ismail, Suresh Sadagopan, Founder, Ladder7 Financial Advisories, explains how lower EPF contributions will increase employees’ tax outgo. Edited excerpts: