The New Income-tax Act 2025 replaced the 1961 law on 1 April 2026, and every headline about the change made it sound like the entire tax system had been rebuilt overnight. If you are sitting down to file your return for FY 2025-26 and wondering whether something fundamental has shifted — the short answer is: […]
India replaced its 64-year-old income tax law on 1 April 2026. The Income-tax Act 2025 is now the governing statute, and the Income-tax Act 1961 — amended over 65 times and expanded to 819 sections across 47 chapters — has been retired. For most taxpayers, the first question is a reasonable one: does any of
Most income tax notices are not random. They follow a pattern: the Income Tax Department’s automated system compares what you declared in your ITR against data it received from your bank, employer, broker, registrar, or mutual fund. When those numbers do not match — or when a required income is absent from your return —
GST Input tax credit — ITC — is one of the most valuable features of GST. In theory, every rupee of GST your business pays on purchases can be offset against GST you owe on sales, so you pay tax only on the value you add. In practice, ITC is not automatic. Section 16 of
Depositing cash in your bank account is a routine activity. It becomes a tax event the moment the amount crosses a threshold that banks must report to the Income Tax Department — or when the deposit cannot be reconciled with the income declared in your ITR. Both intentional evasion and innocent cash handling trigger the
When an income tax notice arrives — or when a CA conducts the annual audit — the first question is: where are the records? A startup that has filed every ITR and GST return on time but kept no supporting documents is still exposed. Section 44AA of the Income Tax Act 1961 makes book-keeping a
Running a business in India means managing income tax and GST simultaneously — along with labour contributions, MSME payment obligations, and a calendar full of quarterly and annual deadlines. Most startup founders know about ITR filing. Fewer know about advance tax instalments, GSTR-2B reconciliation, or what happens when they pay an MSME vendor 50 days
The phrase “tax audit” makes most startup founders think of large corporations. In reality, the tax audit applicability under Section 44AB of the Income Tax Act 1961 is entirely about turnover — and the thresholds are lower than many businesses expect. Miss it and you face a penalty, a delayed ITR, and potentially loss of
Many freelancers in India treat GST and income tax as the same thing. They are not. Income tax is on your earnings — computed annually, filed as an ITR. GST is on the services you supply — collected from clients on each invoice, remitted monthly or quarterly. The two systems run on separate portals under
If your startup exports software to a client in the US, supplies SaaS to a company in Singapore, or sells goods to an SEZ unit in India, you are making zero-rated supplies under GST. Zero-rated does not mean ignored. It means you have two choices: pay IGST on every invoice and wait months for a
