NEW DELHI, Feb 7: The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the Income Tax Bill which would likely eliminate the need to wait for the budget for some kind of income tax reliefs or amend the Income Tax Act.
The new income tax bill, which will replace the six decade old Income Tax act, 1961, has been drafted within six months and efforts have been made to simplify the language to make tax compliance easier for taxpayers and make it easier to read and understand.
The new bill is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday. This bill is part of a larger effort to reform the tax system and aims to overhaul the existing tax structure to make it more streamlined and transparent.
The Union Budget 2025 announced that the Ministry of Finance will table the new Income Tax Bill in front of the Union Cabinet this week. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her annual press conference after the Budget, said she hoped that the bill passes without any difficulties.
The Indian government aims to bring simplicity to the taxpayers with the new income tax bill and also announced that it will be 50 per cent less in text and clearer compared to the previous one.
In the last 64 years, the Income Tax Act has undergone a flurry of changes almost every year. From tweaks in the tax rates to the introduction of new provisions; from bringing a new exemption to the scrapping of old ones – this Act has seen a lot in the past six decades and counting. For a long time now, tax experts and taxpayers have felt the need for a new law which is written on a clean slate, subsuming all the current provisions and beyond.
(Manas Dasgupta)
