What arrived on 1 April 2026 was not merely a fresh coat of legislative paint.The Income-tax Act, 2025 formally replaced the 1961 Act for tax years beginning on or after that date, while the old law continues to govern tax years that began before 1 April 2026. That single fact is the starting point for all sensible advice, because it means we are not living through a clean overnight rupture but through a carefully staged transition.

AY 2026–27 returns for income of FY 2025–26 are still governed by the old Act, while Tax Year 2026–27 and later are governed by the new Act. Any narrative that treats April 2026 as though every return, every assessment, every option, and every deduction instantly migrated into a single new universe is already skating on thin ice.

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Also Read:New Income Tax Act from April 2026, No Change in Slabs in Budget 2026

The first thing a prudent reader must grasp is that the new law is both important and, in another sense, less revolutionary than its political packaging suggests. The CBDT's own material describes the 2025 Act as a simplification-and-modernisation exercise meant to consolidate, renumber, streamline, and reduce interpretational clutter.

In many areas, the architecture survives; the numbering changes, the drafting becomes cleaner, and some targeted amendments are layered on through the Finance Act, 2026. So the real story is not "everything has changed." The real story is subtler and, for taxpayers, more dangerous: enough has changed in language, forms, filing pathways, transition rules, and a few key incentives to trip up the inattentive, while enough has remained the same to lull them into false comfort.

Old vs New Tax Regime Slabs Under the Income Tax Act 2025

That is why the old-versus-new regime debate remains alive even after the statutory switchover. For individuals, the new regime under section 202 of the 2025 Act continues the concessional slab structure already familiar from section 115BAC(1A) of the 1961 Act: nil up to ₹4 lakh, and thereafter 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30% across the rising slab bands, with the rebate framework making tax liability nil up to ₹12 lakh of total income in the new regime.

Source: The Probe: Investigative Journalism & In-Depth News Analysis