Income tax calculator, both regimes at once

How the two regimes differ

The new regime is the default. If you do nothing, this is the one your tax is computed under. It has wider slabs and lower rates, and in exchange it removes almost every deduction — no 80C, no 80D, no HRA exemption, no home loan interest on a self-occupied property. What survives is the standard deduction of ₹75,000 on salary or pension, and your employer's NPS contribution.

The old regime keeps the deductions and charges more for them. Its exemption limit is lower, its rates climb faster, and its standard deduction is ₹50,000. It only wins when your deductions are large enough to bridge that gap, which in practice means a serious 80C, a real HRA claim, or a home loan on a property you live in.

There is no permanently right answer, and the answer can change from year to year. A salaried person can switch between regimes each year while filing. Someone with business or professional income cannot switch freely — moving out of the new regime and back again is restricted, so that choice is worth taking advice on rather than toggling.

What the new regime still allows

People read “no deductions” and stop there, which costs them money. Four things survive into the new regime, and on a salary near the rebate line they are the difference between paying tax and paying none.

The standard deduction of ₹75,000 is the first, and it needs no paperwork — it applies to anyone with salary or pension income. It is why a salary of ₹12,75,000 lands on taxable income of exactly ₹12 lakh.

The employer's NPS contribution under Section 80CCD(2) is the second, and it is the only one you can actually influence. Your own NPS contribution under 80CCD(1B) is dead in the new regime; what your employer pays in is not. In the new regime the deduction runs up to 14% of basic plus DA, against 10% in the old regime for a private employer. Most employers will restructure the salary on request — the same rupee that would have reached you as taxable pay goes into your NPS account instead, and stops being income. The catch worth naming: that money is locked until 60, and 60% of the corpus comes back tax-free while the rest must buy an annuity. It is a genuine deduction, not free money.

The family pension deduction is the third. Pension drawn by the widow or dependant of a deceased employee is taxed as other income rather than salary, and one-third of it — capped at ₹25,000 in the new regime, ₹15,000 in the old — comes off before tax. Households in this position are routinely told the new regime gives them nothing, which is wrong.

The fourth is Section 80CCH, the Agniveer Corpus Fund, deductible under either regime for those enrolled under Agnipath. Beyond these, a handful of narrow items survive — the transport allowance for an employee with a disability, conveyance and tour allowances that reimburse an actual expense, and gratuity and leave encashment exemptions on retirement, which are exemptions rather than deductions and never enter the taxable figure in the first place.

New regime slabs, FY 2026-27

The same slabs applied in FY 2025-26, and Budget 2026 left them alone. The exemption limit is ₹4 lakh for everyone under this regime — senior citizens get no higher limit here, which is the one place the new regime is harsher than the old.

Old regime slabs, FY 2026-27

Why ₹12 lakh is tax-free, and what happens at ₹12,00,001

The slabs alone would tax ₹12 lakh of income at ₹60,000. The rebate then cancels exactly that amount, so the tax payable is nil. For a salaried person the standard deduction pushes the same outcome up to a salary of ₹12,75,000.

Cross the line and the rebate vanishes entirely, which would create an absurd cliff — one extra rupee of income triggering ₹60,000 of tax. Marginal relief exists to stop that. Where income is just above ₹12 lakh, the tax payable is limited to the amount by which income exceeds ₹12 lakh, before cess. Someone at ₹12,10,000 therefore pays around ₹10,000 rather than ₹61,500. The relief tapers off as income rises and stops mattering somewhere above ₹12.75 lakh, where ordinary slab tax is the lower figure anyway. This calculator applies it automatically, and shows it as its own line so you can see when it is doing the work.

The line is worth engineering around. Someone with taxable income of ₹12,50,000 pays about ₹52,000 after marginal relief and cess. Move ₹50,000 of that into an employer NPS contribution and the taxable figure becomes ₹12 lakh — tax nil, cess nil. Fifty thousand rupees of deduction saves fifty-two thousand rupees of tax, which is the only place in the Indian tax code where a deduction returns more than a hundred paise in the rupee. It happens because the rebate is all-or-nothing at the threshold. Above roughly ₹13 lakh the effect fades and the deduction goes back to saving tax at your slab rate. This calculator flags the gap in the result box whenever you are sitting in that band.

Surcharge and cess

Above ₹50 lakh of income a surcharge applies on the tax itself — 10% above ₹50 lakh, 15% above ₹1 crore, 25% above ₹2 crore, and in the old regime 37% above ₹5 crore. The new regime caps it at 25%. Marginal relief applies at each of those thresholds too, so that crossing one never costs more than the income that took you over it, and this calculator applies that as well.

On top of everything sits health and education cess at 4%, charged on tax plus surcharge. There is no rebate against it, which is why a person with nil tax pays nil cess, and a person with ₹1 of tax pays cess on that rupee.

What this calculator does not cover

It computes tax on ordinary income at slab rates, which is what the great majority of salaried people and pensioners need. It deliberately leaves out capital gains, because those are taxed at their own rates and their own holding-period rules, and folding them into a slab calculation produces a confident number that is wrong. The same applies to lottery and betting income, income taxed at special rates, and anything involving foreign assets or relief under a tax treaty.

It also assumes you are a resident individual. If you file as a HUF, a firm, or a non-resident, the structure differs and this is not the right tool.

Treat the result as an estimate good enough to choose a regime and plan your investment declaration — not as a filed return. Before you actually file, the figures should be checked against your Form 16, your Annual Information Statement and, where the amounts matter, with a chartered accountant.