Income-tax rates AY 2021-22 — Finance Act, 2021

Independently re-read on 2 September 2026

A second pass went back to the department’s text at the sources listed at the foot of this page and read these figures again. That check is recorded in the record itself as verified_on: 2026-09-02.

What this year’s reading did not reach

Local authority (Paragraph D): 30 per cent, surcharge twelve per cent above one crore rupees. The section 115BAC concessional slab table is not carried by this Act, so new-regime slabs are left empty. Rebate under section 87A is not in section 2 or the First Schedule. The batch's 'First Schedule b' URL (13368352) is the customs-tariff Second Schedule and the 'Fourth Schedule' URL (13377518) carries no income-tax rates; neither was used.

New regime: No cap on surcharge specific to this regime was established for this year. The 25 per cent ceiling often attributed to the new regime could not be found in any Finance Act First Schedule text read here, and no such proviso was found for a section 115BAC(1) year; nothing is therefore recorded. The section that inserted 115BAC was identified from the department's footnote to the section, not from the Finance Act, 2020's own amending section, whose structured-content record could not be reached.

Which Act set these rates

Act

Finance Act, 2021

Assessment year

2021-22

Income of the previous year

2020-21

What was read

the charging section and the First Schedule

The Act itself

Finance Act, 2021 in this library

Finance Act, 2021 charged income-tax for the assessment year commencing 1 April 2021. What it charged was the income of the previous year 2020-21. The two are a year apart and the difference matters: a table headed by the wrong one is useless.

The slabs

Old

every individual other than the individual referred to in items (II) and (III) of Paragraph A, Hindu undivided family, association of persons, body of individuals whether incorporated or not, or every artificial juridical person referred to in sub-clause (vii) of clause (31) of section 2 of the Income-tax Act, not being a case to which any other Paragraph of Part I applies

Maximum amount not chargeable to income-tax: Rs 2,50,000

Total income	Rate of income-tax
Up to Rs 2,50,000	Nil
Rs 2,50,001 – Rs 5,00,000	5%
Rs 5,00,001 – Rs 10,00,000	20%
Rs 10,00,001 and above	30%

Section 2(1): 'Subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), for the assessment year commencing on the 1st day of April, 2021, income-tax shall be charged at the rates specified in Part I of the First Schedule'.

New (section 115BAC)

individual or Hindu undivided family exercising the option under section 115BAC of the Income-tax Act

Rate table: section 115BAC(1), as put there by Finance Act, 2020. The department's text of section 115BAC carries the footnote "Ins. by the Act No. 12 of 2020, w.e.f. 1-4-2021"; sub-section (1) opens "for any previous year relevant to the assessment year beginning on or after the 1st day of April, 2021 but before the 1st day of April, 2024" (the closing words were added later), and the table applies "at the option of such person".

Maximum amount not chargeable to income-tax: Rs 2,50,000

Total income	Rate of income-tax
Up to Rs 2,50,000	Nil
Rs 2,50,001 – Rs 5,00,000	5%
Rs 5,00,001 – Rs 7,50,000	10%
Rs 7,50,001 – Rs 10,00,000	15%
Rs 10,00,001 – Rs 12,50,000	20%
Rs 12,50,001 – Rs 15,00,000	25%
Rs 15,00,001 and above	30%

Rebate under section 87A: total income up to Rs 5,00,000; rebate up to Rs 12,500 — The general rebate in section 87A: "An assessee, being an individual resident in India, whose total income does not exceed five hundred thousand rupees, shall be entitled to a deduction ... of an amount equal to hundred per cent of such income-tax or an amount of twelve thousand and five hundred rupees, whichever is less." The 2022 edition of the department's text of section 87A carries this single paragraph and no proviso, so no separate new-regime figure existed for this year; the new-regime proviso was inserted only by Act No. 8 of 2023 with effect from 1-4-2024.

Part I, Paragraph A of this Act refers to 'the provision of section 115BAC of the Income-tax Act' only in its surcharge sentence; it sets out no concessional slab table. The table is in section 115BAC of the Income-tax Act, which was not among the parts read.

Senior citizens, very senior citizens, and women

Only where the Act for this year set a separate threshold or a separate table. Where it did not, this page says so.

Resident senior citizens

resident in India, sixty years or more but less than eighty years at any time during the previous year; Nil up to Rs. 3,00,000; 5 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 3,00,000 up to Rs. 5,00,000; Rs. 10,000 plus 20 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 5,00,000 up to Rs. 10,00,000; Rs. 1,10,000 plus 30 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 10,00,000

Maximum amount not chargeable to income-tax: Rs 3,00,000

Resident very senior citizens

resident in India, eighty years or more at any time during the previous year; Nil up to Rs. 5,00,000; 20 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 5,00,000 up to Rs. 10,00,000; Rs. 1,00,000 plus 30 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 10,00,000

Maximum amount not chargeable to income-tax: Rs 5,00,000

Resident women

This year’s record carries no separate table or threshold under this head.

Surcharge

Total income	Surcharge on the income-tax
Rs 50,00,000 – Rs 1,00,00,000	10%
Rs 1,00,00,000 – Rs 2,00,00,000	15%
Rs 2,00,00,000 – Rs 5,00,00,000	25%
Rs 5,00,00,000 and above	37%

Clauses (c) and (d) are computed on total income excluding income by way of dividend and income under sections 111A and 112A. First proviso: where the total income includes any income by way of dividend or income chargeable under section 111A and section 112A, the rate of surcharge on the income-tax computed on that part of income shall not exceed fifteen per cent. Confirmed by two separate fetches, including a character-by-character reading of the 'thirty-seven per cent' clause.

Cess

Cess	Rate
Health and Education Cess	4%

Marginal relief

Part I contains marginal-relief provisos: the total of income-tax and surcharge on a total income above a threshold shall not exceed the total of income-tax (and surcharge, where applicable) on a total income equal to that threshold by more than the amount of income that exceeds the threshold. Equivalent provisos appear at the one crore rupee threshold in Paragraphs B, C and D and at the one crore and ten crore rupee thresholds in Paragraph E.

Companies, firms, co-operative societies and local authorities

Reproduced in the Act’s own words, because these rates carry conditions a single percentage cannot.

Assessee	Rate as the Act states it
Domestic company	25 per cent of the total income where its total turnover or the gross receipt in the previous year 2018-19 does not exceed four hundred crore rupees; otherwise 30 per cent. Surcharge: seven per cent above one crore rupees but not exceeding ten crore rupees; twelve per cent above ten crore rupees.
Foreign company	50 per cent on royalties and fees for technical services under the approved pre-1976 agreements described in Paragraph E; 40 per cent on the balance of the total income. Surcharge: two per cent above one crore rupees but not exceeding ten crore rupees; five per cent above ten crore rupees.
Firms and limited liability partnerships	30 per cent of the total income; surcharge twelve per cent of such income-tax where the total income exceeds one crore rupees
Co-operative societies	10 per cent of the total income where it does not exceed Rs. 10,000; Rs. 1,000 plus 20 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 10,000 where the total income exceeds Rs. 10,000 but not Rs. 20,000; Rs. 3,000 plus 30 per cent of the amount exceeding Rs. 20,000 where the total income exceeds Rs. 20,000. Surcharge twelve per cent where the total income exceeds one crore rupees.
Local authorities	The Act’s text for this was not reached. No figure is recorded, and none has been supplied from another year.

What changed from the year before

Worked out by comparing this record with the one for the preceding assessment year in this collection. Where a figure is absent from either record, that is said rather than guessed.

Against assessment year 2020-21 (Finance Act, 2020): a regime described as ‘new (section 115BAC)’ carries an exemption limit of Rs 2,50,000 this year; the previous record carries no limit under that name.
Against assessment year 2020-21 (Finance Act, 2020): the old regime’s exemption limit is unchanged at Rs 2,50,000.
The top slab rate is unchanged at 30%.
The surcharge is unchanged: 4 tiers, topping out at 37%.
The cess is unchanged: Health and Education Cess 4%.
The company rates are stated differently this year; read both years’ wording rather than taking a single number from either.
The firm rate stand in the same words as the year before.
The co-operative society rates stand in the same words as the year before.
Neither record reaches the local authority rate.
The separate threshold for resident senior citizens is unchanged at Rs 3,00,000.
The separate threshold for resident very senior citizens is unchanged at Rs 5,00,000.

Sources

The Income Tax Department’s own records for this Act. These are the documents the figures above were read out of.

The department’s index of Finance Acts is at https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/finance-acts.

The years either side

← AY 2020-21 · AY 2022-23 →

What this page is, and what it is not

The figures are the Finance Act’s own. Every rate, threshold and exemption on this page was taken out of the Income Tax Department’s own text of the Act that charged the year — the charging section and the First Schedule — and the records we read are linked under Sources on each year’s page. The writing around the figures is ours: the arrangement, the headings, the comparison with the year before and every sentence of explanation. Those are not the Act.

These tables are for orientation. The Act governs. A rate table is a finding aid, not the law. The Act, its First Schedule and the provisos in it decide what is payable, and a table cannot carry the provisos. If you are about to rely on a figure here — in a return, in a computation, in a reply to a notice — open the source linked on the year’s page and read the figure in the Act for yourself. Where a record did not reach a rate, this library says so rather than filling the gap.

Income-tax rates for assessment year 2021-22