New Delhi, Jul 23 (FN Bureau) Bringing some relief to middle-class salaried individuals and pensioners, the government on Tuesday proposed to increase the standard deduction from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 under the new tax regime. The proposal would result in saving up to Rs 17500 under the new tax regime. While presenting the general budget for the year 2024-25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will undertake a comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act to make it easy to read.
The minister also said the government will come out with SoP (standard operating procedure) for TDS defaults and simplify and rationalise the compounding of such offences. She added that two tax exemption regimes for charitable trusts will be merged into one. For the salaried individuals and pensioners, the Minister has proposed six slabs with nil tax for income up to Rs 3 lakh annually.There will be a 5 percent tax for income of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh. while Income from 7 lakh to Rs 10 lakh will attract tax at the rate of 10 percent and slab of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh will be taxed at 15 percent. From Rs 12 lakh to Rs 15 lakh, the tax rate will be 20 percent and income above Rs 15 lakh will attract tax of 30 percent. Deduction from family pension of Rs 15,000 is proposed to be increased to Rs 25,000 under the new tax regime.