Income Tax Calculator FY26

How this calculator works

Punch in your gross annual income at the top. Add deductions if you have them, though they only move the needle for the old regime. The tool runs your income through both regimes for FY 2025-26, knocks off the Section 87A rebate, adds surcharge where it applies plus the 4% cess, and drops the two final numbers next to each other. Whichever is lower gets the tick. I'm not here to push the new regime on you. Some people are better off on it, plenty aren't, and the only honest answer comes from your own figures.

Here's the catch nobody spells out clearly. The new regime throws out nearly every deduction. So your 80C, your home loan interest, your HRA, all of it nudges the old-regime column and leaves the new one sitting still. If you barely claim anything, the two numbers diverge the second you start typing. If you claim a lot, watch the old column fall.

FY 2025-26 new regime slabs and the ₹12 lakh rebate

Budget 2025 widened the new-regime slabs. These are the rates for FY 2025-26 (assessment year 2026-27):

The rebate is the real story. Section 87A now wipes the tax bill clean for a resident whose taxable income stays at or under ₹12,00,000, because the rebate (up to ₹60,000) swallows the whole slab liability. Salaried? Add the ₹75,000 standard deduction and you can pull in ₹12.75 lakh gross and still hand over nothing. That is a lot of people who used to write a cheque and now don't.

Go a rupee past ₹12 lakh and you don't fall off a cliff, because marginal relief catches you. The rule is plain: the extra tax can't be more than the income you earned beyond ₹12 lakh. So at ₹12.1 lakh taxable, the slab maths spits out ₹61,500, but relief drags it down to about ₹10,000 plus cess. It tapers off near ₹12.75 lakh, and from there you're on ordinary slab tax. The calculator sorts all this out quietly, so just trust the new-regime figure it shows.

FY 2025-26 old regime: HRA, 80C and Section 24(b)

The old regime slabs have not moved in years:

The old regime lives or dies by its deductions. For most salaried folks the heavy lifters are Section 80C (₹1.5 lakh, covering EPF, PPF, ELSS, insurance premiums and home loan principal), the HRA exemption if you're renting, and Section 24(b) for up to ₹2 lakh of home loan interest on a self-occupied house. Add 80D for health cover and another ₹50,000 of NPS under 80CCD(1B), and someone carrying a home loan can legally keep ₹4-5 lakh out of the taxman's reach. That's the point where the old regime claws the lead back.

One warning, because people trip on this constantly. If your 80C is already full from EPF and a PPF top-up, your home loan principal adds nothing on top. The ₹1.5 lakh cap is shared, not stacked. The interest under Section 24 is a separate pot, which is exactly why the EMI calculator here puts your first-year interest front and centre. That's the number that actually feeds this deduction.

Take-home salary: gross to net

The in-hand number here is gross income minus income tax under the cheaper regime, split across twelve months. It answers the question people are actually asking when they hunt for an in-hand salary calculator: what is salary tax going to cost me every month?

Just don't mistake it for the amount landing in your bank account. Two more things leave your salary that aren't income tax. EPF, usually 12% of basic, gets parked in your provident fund and comes back to you later, so it's your money, not the government's. And professional tax, which a handful of states still charge, takes up to ₹2,500 a year. Neither shows up here, because neither is income tax. Want the true cash in hand? Knock your monthly EPF and professional tax off the figure above.

Monthly TDS impact

Your employer doesn't sit around till March to collect. They estimate your full-year liability under whichever regime you declared in April, then shave off roughly a twelfth of it from each paycheck as TDS. So month to month, your TDS is more or less the annual tax above divided by twelve.

Which is why declaring your investments late stings. Tell HR about your 80C and rent only in January, and the whole saving gets crammed into the last three payslips of the year, leaving them noticeably lighter. Hand it in around April and the relief spreads out evenly instead. One more thing people forget: the regime you picked for TDS isn't locked in. If you're salaried, you can still switch to the other one when you file, assuming it works out cheaper.

Common mistakes when picking a regime

The usual blunder is assuming the new regime has to be better just because it's all anyone talks about. For a young earner renting a flat, carrying a big home loan and maxing out 80C, the old regime can still win by a fair distance. Check your own numbers before you commit. Guessing here costs real money.

Then there's forgetting that the new regime is the default. Do nothing, and your employer deducts TDS the new way. If the old one suited you better, you only put it right at filing, after a full year of heavier cuts. Flip side: anyone with business income should tread carefully, because they can't bounce between regimes year to year the way salaried people can.

And the sneaky one, mixing up the rebate ceiling with the standard deduction. That ₹12 lakh threshold sits on taxable income, the number left after the ₹75,000 standard deduction comes off. So a salaried person on ₹12.75 lakh gross still lands at ₹12 lakh taxable and pays zero. Quote ₹12 lakh as the gross cut-off, like half the internet does, and you've quietly undersold the break by ₹75,000 of salary.