Income Tax Calculator.

It depends entirely on how much you can genuinely claim in deductions under the old regime versus the lower slab rates and higher rebate threshold under the new regime. As a rough rule, if your Section 80C, 80D, HRA and other old-regime deductions together add up to a large share of your income, roughly 20 to 25 percent or more, the old regime often works out cheaper. If you have few investments, no HRA claim, or a modest health insurance premium, the new regime usually wins because of its wider slabs and the Section 87A rebate that makes tax zero up to Rs 12,00,000 of taxable income for FY 2025-26. There is no universal answer since it depends on your specific numbers, which is exactly why this calculator runs both regimes side by side using your real income and deductions and tells you which one saves more and by how much, so you are not guessing or relying on a rule of thumb that may not fit your situation.

The Section 87A rebate is a provision that reduces your tax liability to zero once your taxable income falls at or below a set threshold, effectively making that income tax-free even though the slab rates technically apply above zero. For FY 2025-26 under the new regime, the rebate threshold was raised to Rs 12,00,000 of taxable income, meaning a taxpayer with taxable income up to that level under the new regime pays no income tax at all after the rebate is applied, though a small amount of tax may still show before the rebate kicks in. Under the old regime, the equivalent threshold remains Rs 5,00,000 of taxable income. This calculator applies both rebates automatically based on your computed taxable income, so if your numbers fall within the eligible range you will see zero tax reflected in the result rather than the slab-rate figure before rebate. Note that the rebate applies to the tax computed on total taxable income and does not apply to income taxed at special rates, such as certain capital gains.

No, HRA exemption is one of the deductions available only under the old tax regime, along with most Chapter VI-A deductions like Section 80C investments, Section 80D health insurance premiums, and home loan interest under Section 24 for a self-occupied property. The new regime offers lower slab rates and a higher standard deduction and rebate threshold in exchange for giving up nearly all these exemptions, with a small number of exceptions such as the employer contribution to NPS under Section 80CCD(2) and the standard deduction itself. This is exactly why the comparison matters: if you pay significant rent and can claim a large HRA exemption, that pulls the old regime calculation in your favour, whereas someone who owns their home and has no such claim usually finds the new regime cheaper. Enter your HRA exemption amount in the calculator only if you are comparing the old regime figure, since the new regime column in the results already correctly excludes it from that side of the comparison.

The new tax regime is deliberately simplified and allows very few deductions compared with the old regime. The main ones available are the standard deduction of Rs 75,000 for salaried employees and pensioners for FY 2025-26, the employer contribution to your National Pension System account under Section 80CCD(2) up to prescribed limits, and a few specific items like transport allowance for differently-abled employees and conveyance allowance for official duties. Popular deductions such as Section 80C investments in PF, ELSS or life insurance, Section 80D health insurance premiums, HRA exemption, and home loan interest on a self-occupied property under Section 24 are not available under the new regime. This trade-off, fewer deductions in exchange for lower slab rates and a higher rebate threshold, is exactly what this calculator is built to evaluate, since whether it works in your favour depends on how much you would otherwise have claimed under the old regime.

Yes, the calculator automatically adds a 4 percent health and education cess on top of the income tax computed under both the old and new regime slabs, exactly as Indian tax law requires. The cess is applied to the tax amount after any applicable Section 87A rebate, so if your tax is already reduced to zero by the rebate, the cess on that zero amount is also zero. For any taxpayer whose computed tax is above zero, the final figure shown in both the old and new regime columns already includes this 4 percent addition, so you do not need to calculate it separately or add it yourself. This matches how tax is actually collected through TDS and self-assessment in India, where the cess is a standard addition to the base income tax liability across nearly all individual taxpayers, so the numbers you see here should closely match what your salary slip TDS or your final tax return would show for the same income and deduction inputs.

If you are a salaried individual with no business or professional income, yes, you can choose a different regime each financial year when you file your return, and you can also change your declaration to your employer at the start of a new financial year for TDS purposes. This flexibility is useful because your best regime can shift as your income, investments or HRA claims change from year to year, so what worked for FY 2024-25 might not be optimal for FY 2025-26. However, if you have business or professional income, the rules are more restrictive: you generally get only one opportunity to switch back from the new regime to the old regime in your lifetime for that income category, after which the choice becomes largely locked in, so business owners and professionals should be more careful before opting for the new regime. Because of this asymmetry, salaried taxpayers can safely re-run this calculator every year and change their declaration, while self-employed taxpayers should treat the decision as closer to permanent and consult an advisor before switching.

No, every calculation in this tool runs entirely inside your own browser using JavaScript on the page. The income figure, your 80C and 80D amounts, your HRA exemption and your standard deduction choice are never transmitted to us or to any third party, and there is no account, login or saved history involved. This local-only design means you can enter your real salary and deduction figures to get an accurate comparison without any privacy concern, and the results appear instantly because nothing needs to travel over a network connection. The trade-off is that the tool does not remember your numbers between visits, so if you want to keep a particular comparison for reference, note the figures down or take a screenshot before you change the inputs or close the tab. This approach also means the calculator keeps working even if your internet connection is unstable, since all the tax slab logic runs locally on your own device rather than on a remote server.