ITR Calculator FY 2026-27 — Refund or Tax Payable

Your employer computes TDS on its own salary and whatever you declared to it — nothing more. Four things routinely open a gap. Interest and other income you never declared. A regime at filing that differs from the one you declared in April. Deductions you had but never proved to payroll. A salary revision that TDS could only catch up on in the months after it landed.

The return is where all four settle. If more was deducted than was due, the difference comes back as a refund. If less, you pay the balance before filing.

Section 392 does not apply monthly slabs to a monthly salary. Each month the employer projects the year's salary — what it has paid so far plus the current pay for the months left — computes the tax on that, subtracts what it has already deducted, and spreads the rest over the remaining months.

So a hike in October does not raise April's TDS retroactively. It raises every month from October, by enough to catch up on the whole year. The month-by-month table shows that step.

The ₹1,50,000 section 123 limit (formerly 80C) is an aggregate, and your provident fund contribution is part of it. On a basic of ₹15,000 or more, PF alone is ₹21,600 a year, so only ₹1,28,400 of the limit is left for PPF, ELSS or insurance. This calculator adds your PF automatically, so the limit is not counted twice.

If the tax left after TDS is ₹10,000 or more, it was meant to be paid during the year as advance tax: 15% by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December and all of it by 15 March. A resident aged 60 or over with no business income does not have to pay advance tax.

Two kinds of interest follow a shortfall. Section 425, formerly 234C, charges a flat 3% on what was short at each of the first three dates, and 1% at the last. Paying at least 12% by 15 June, or 36% by 15 September, protects that instalment. Section 424, formerly 234B, applies when less than 90% was paid by the end of the year. It charges 1% a month on the unpaid amount from April until you pay, and part of a month counts as a whole one.

Undeclared interest income is the usual way salaried people end up here. Salary TDS never covered it, so the tax on it counts as advance tax that was never paid.

Rent is taxed as income from house property, not as other income. Take the rent for the year, subtract the municipal taxes you actually paid, and then subtract a flat 30% of what is left, whatever your real repair bills were. Interest on a loan for that property comes off too, with no cap.

If that leaves a loss, the two regimes part ways. The old regime lets up to ₹2 lakh of it come off your salary and other income each year, and that limit covers your self-occupied home-loan interest too. The new regime lets the interest bring the rent down to nil but no further, and allows no interest at all on a home you live in.

Gains on listed shares and equity mutual funds, with securities transaction tax paid, have their own rates. Held 12 months or less, they are short-term and taxed at 20% under section 196. Held longer, they are long-term: the first ₹1,25,000 a year is taxed at nil and the rest at 12.5% under section 198. Long-term gains on property, gold or unlisted shares held more than 24 months are taxed at 12.5% without indexation under section 197.

Other short-term gains are added to your income and taxed at your slab rate. So are gains on debt funds bought after 31 March 2023, however long you held them.

Three rules catch people out. The ₹60,000 rebate never reduces tax on capital gains, so someone under ₹12 lakh with equity gains still pays tax on them. Deductions like section 123 cannot be set against these gains. And if your other income is below the basic exemption, the unused part comes off your gains first.

For a salaried person the return is due by 31 July after the tax year ends. A late (belated) return can still be filed until 31 December. After that, only an updated return is possible, and it carries additional tax.

Filing late costs two things. Section 423, formerly 234A, charges 1% a month on any tax still unpaid on the due date, and part of a month counts as a whole one. Section 428, formerly 234F, charges a fee of ₹5,000, or up to ₹1,000 if your total income is ₹5 lakh or less. The fee applies even when the return shows a refund.

Business income has its own rules and is not included, and neither is setting capital losses off against gains or carrying a house-property loss forward to a later year. For land or a building bought before 23 July 2024, the lower tax the law allows with indexation is not worked out either. The calculator does not tell you which return form to file, and it assumes the balance is paid on the day you file. It assumes you are resident in India, which the section 156 rebate requires.