The government of India has announced that the
Income Tax Act, 2025 will officially come into effect on April 1, 2026. This landmark legislation replaces the 65-year-old Income Tax Act of 1961 and is designed to simplify India's direct tax framework by reducing legal complexity and the volume of tax text by nearly 50% . Key Structural Changes
The new Act introduces several fundamental changes to the tax experience:
- Unified "Tax Year": Replaces the separate concepts of "Previous Year" and "Assessment Year" with a single, unified "Tax Year".
- Simplified Layout: The Act is compressed into 536 sections (down from over 800) across 23 chapters and 16 schedules.
- Consolidated Provisions: Related rules, such as those for TDS (Tax Deducted at Source), have been grouped under single sections (e.g., Section 393) to eliminate scattered cross-referencing.
- Digital-First Compliance: The Act prioritises faceless assessments and redesigned, user-friendly forms to reduce human interface and compliance errors.
Income Tax Slabs and Relief (Effective April 1, 2026)
While the Act introduces structural reforms, the government has maintained the New Tax Regime as the default option, retaining the slab structure established in the 2025 Budget.
| Taxable Income (Rs.) | Tax Rate (%) |
|---|---|
| Up to 4,00,000 | Nil |
| 4,00,001 – 8,00,000 | 5% |
| 8,00,001 – 12,00,000 | 10% |
| 12,00,001 – 16,00,000 | 15% |
| 16,00,001 – 20,00,000 | 20% |
| 20,00,001 – 24,00,000 | 25% |
| Above 24,00,000 | 30% |
- Effective Zero Tax: Individuals earning up to Rs. 12 lakh pay zero tax due to an enhanced Section 87A rebate of Rs. 60,000.
- Salaried Benefit: For salaried taxpayers, the tax-free limit effectively rises to Rs. 12.75 lakh after applying the Rs. 75,000 standard deduction.
- Senior Citizens: The deduction limit for senior citizens has been doubled from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1 lakh.
Important Administrative Updates
- Extended ITR Filing: The deadline for non-audit business taxpayers and trusts has been pushed from July 31 to August 31, 2026.
- Revised Returns: Taxpayers can now file revised returns for a period of 12 months (up from 9 months) from the end of the tax year, with a nominal fee.
- Property Transactions: The requirement to obtain a TAN for buying property from a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) has been removed; buyers can now use their PAN.
- Securities Transaction Tax (STT): STT on equity futures increases from 0.02% to 0.05%, and on options from 0.1% to 0.15% to curb excessive speculative trading.
The Finance Ministry will shortly notify the simplified Income Tax Rules and Forms to allow taxpayers sufficient time to prepare for the transition. For specific calculations, you can use the Official Income Tax Calculator.
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https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/what-are-emotions.htm : What are emotions, and why do we have them? By Josh Clark: f you're ever hit in the nose hard enough to make your eyes water, you may also notice that your skin will grow hot, your mouth will go a bit dry and your pulse will become elevated. You'll find that your head begins to swim with a strong desire to hit something in return, possibly to shout while you do. Eventually, you'll find that you've overcome this sudden influx of physical and mental stimuli. What you've just experienced -- the basic emotion of anger -- has passed.
Why a slight impact to the nose leads to a series of physiological and mental changes has long been a matter of speculation, but most psychologists agree that a basic emotion like anger exists as an evolutionary trigger. We humans -- and most other animals -- appear to be equipped with a set of predictable responses to situations. We call these the basic emotions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, joy and sadness, as described in the 1970s by anthropologist Paul Eckman [source: Changing Minds].
Over time, this list of basic emotions has been added to, subtracted from and reshaped based on the idea that human emotions are universal. This notion suggests that for any given situation, like being hit in the nose, any individual in any culture would experience something like anger. This view of emotions as largely objective is widely accepted, although there is an emerging school of thought that believes emotions to be far more subjective: Rather than six or 11 basic emotions, there is an emotion for every possible human experience [source: SCAS].
Under almost every explanation of emotions is the premise that they're a naturally-occurring response to a situation. Whether this response is the result of our own evaluation or an automatic one remains to be seen. In the field of psychology, the view of the nature of emotions can be divided into two camps: Emotions are either the result of a judgment of any current situation or a perception of changes taking place within our bodies [source: Thagard]. In other words, when we experience disgust, it could be the result of a judgment about how we feel when we see vomit. Under the other view, we experience disgust because our body undergoes physiological changes like queasiness and increased skin temperature at the sight of vomit.
Over time, research has also separated other emotions that most in the scientific community believe are only experienced by humans and some other primates. These higher or moral emotions are based on self-awareness, self-consciousness and ability to empathize with others [source: Heery, et al]. The moral emotions are pride, guilt, embarrassment and shame [source: Simons].
Like basic emotions, moral emotions have accompanying physiological changes associated with them. But they diverge from basic emotions in that they tend to emerge after self-reflection, and they support the theory that emotions are results of judgments, rather than simply involuntary reactions to a stimulus.
Whether discussing the origin or nature of basic or higher emotions, one question remains: Why do we experience them in the first place? Emotions may signal a change in our environment, a change within us or a change in both. These signals are generally fleeting in comparison to other states of mind. As a result, emotions are distinct from moods, which can last for hours, days or even weeks. They're also distinct from personalities, the lifelong set of traits that comprise our individual, predictable reactions to situations [source: SCAS]. It would appear that the function of an emotion is to get our attention and demand a response. Psychologists have debated whether that action is an involuntary physiological reaction or the result of judgment we've made after evaluating our current situation.
But why do we experience anger from a smack on the nose or shame from stealing?
Here, the debate ends and scientific consensus emerges. Emotions are motivators. From an evolutionary standpoint, emotions are the agents of change and reaction. Disgust is a quick, nasty response that we experience when we encounter something that might make us sick. Anger quickly transitions us from a placid state to one where we're ready to fight; fear prompts us to flee from dangerous situations. Sadness, on the other hand, can generate the resolve needed to change the direction of one's life. Emotions can also motivate us to continue what we're doing; the experience of joy is a pleasurable one, and we're motivated to carry out the behavior that led to the emotion.
Coupled with our ability to empathize with others, emotions also serve to maintain social bonds. We wear emotions outwardly -- the basic emotions are all readily apparent on a person's face -- so they serve as social signals. These allow us to interact with others' needs in mind rather than our own, which is the basis of society. here are plenty of examples of how emotions help further society. Imagine raising offspring without the emotional attachment associated with one's own children. The feeling of loneliness leads to the emotion of sadness, which prompts us to seek out the company of others. Higher, self-conscious emotions like shame prevent us from repeating behavior that is harmful to others, like stealing.
It would seem, then, that society was able to emerge as a result of our ability to experience emotions based on our interactions with others. Or did it happen the other way around? Interestingly, the social constructionist theory of emotions says that society begins to dictate the emotional response to an individual, rather than vice versa. As a person grows older, emotions develop from knee-jerk physiological reactions to predictable, conditioned responses [source: Ratner]. In this sense, the emotions of the individual are hijacked by the expectations of the society the individual lives in, making that person more suited to live peaceably in that society.
Are we at the beginning of the end of Western civilization? By: Robert Lamb:Depending on whom and when you ask, everything from same-sex smooching to punk music portends the end of Western civilization. That's just the kind of species we are: obsessed with avoiding change and sustaining our cultural surroundings. Every generation has bustled with talk about the end of the world or the loss of cultural identity -- and they've done so as if that end were right around the corner.
In some cases, of course, it was. Tribes and kingdoms have waged wars of extinction against each other over the millennia, long before there was even such a term as "genocide." Both the writings of Homer and the Old Testament contain royal or divine prescriptions of the utter slaughter of entire populations. Larger civilizations and cultures, however, often die hard. Consider the Maya Indians, whose ways of life were decimated by the technologically superior Spanish and their European diseases. The Mayan civilization spanned an impressive 3,000 years and was already in decline by the time the conquistadors arrived in 1519. Yet despite the ravages of warfare, colonization, missionaries and epidemic disease, Mayan culture merged with other ways of life, adapted and still survives in Guatemala, Mexico and Belize.
What about Western civilization, then, with all its art, philosophy, language and history spanning back to its roots in Greek and Roman antiquity?
To quote author and historian William R. Everdell, the concept of the rise and fall of civilizations is "more a pattern in the mind than a pattern in the world." Think of it this way: A chapter about the Mayans in a history book has a definite beginning and an end, and so we often fall into the trap of attributing succinct lengths and story arcs to civilizations as well.
It's essential to bear in mind that culture is evolving. If you could travel back in time a century or two, you'd encounter a different expression of Western civilization. One of the current evolutionary trends, according to anthropologists, is globalization or cultural standardization. Modern technology, communications and media continue to spread across much of the globe, leading to a certain amount of homogeneity between distant locales.
But this doesn't mean the complete dilution of culture. Anthropologist Bryan S. Turner says three factors allow a society to resist cultural standardization: a strong aesthetic tradition, a viable civil society and policies that promote and sustain a national heritage.
Consider the relationship between the United States in the West and Japan in the East. You can find thousands of McDonald's restaurants in Japan, just as you can watch hour after hour of Japanese films and TV shows in the United States. Both cultures absorb aspects of the other while resisting complete cultural globalization. If such a trend holds true, and humans continue to value such things as the cultural, historic and architectural importance of the Parthenon in Greece, then Western civilization won't fade completely away. Instead, it will likely continue to experience cultural hybridization. (Perhaps Greedy and Selfish Capitalism may fade into a hybrid after absorbing human face of Communism after annihilation of violent Leninism/Maoism)
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