India Gets New Income Tax Act, 2025: Old Law Replaced After Six Decades, To Be Effective From April 2026
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while piloting the bill in the Rajya Sabha, said the new law does not impose any fresh taxes but aims to simplify and modernise the tax framework.
The Ministry of Law and Justice has notified the Income Tax Act, 2025, in the Official Gazette after it received the President’s assent.
The Act, passed by Parliament on August 12, 2025 will replace the six-decade-old Income Tax Act, 1961, and is expected to come into effect from April 1, 2026.
The Road Ahead
With the Income Tax Act, 2025, the government has taken the first step towards a more concise, lucid, and taxpayer-friendly legal framework.
The coming months will determine how effectively it translates into better compliance and reduced litigation for India’s taxpayers.
Updated on 26.08.2025
GST 2.0: GSTN Preparedness
New Delhi, Sep 8 (PTI) To ensure a glitch-free rollout of the next-generation GST with reduced rates and lesser slabs, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired three separate meetings to assess GSTN's preparedness and the time it would take to implement technological changes required in the software systems.
In an interview to PTI, Sitharaman said the Centre had started the preparatory work on upgrading GST Network's (GSTN) backend much in advance.
In the biggest reform since Goods and Services Tax (GST) was rolled out on July 1, 2017, the GST Council, comprising the Centre and states, last week decided to decrease the number of slabs to just two from the current four. Currently, GST is levied at 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent rates, and a compensation cess is levied on luxury and sin goods.
Effective September 22, GST will be levied at 5 and 18 per cent on most goods and services, while a separate 40 per cent rate will be applicable on ultra-luxury items and tobacco-related products.
To implement this reform, the software system of GST Network (GSTN), which provides the IT backend support for return filing and tax payment, has to be upgraded. At the same time, businesses will also have to upgrade their ERP systems from September 22.
