About 88% individual taxpayers filing returns under new tax regime: CBDT Chairman
Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Ravi Agrawal has said that nearly 88 per cent of individual taxpayers have adopted the new income tax regime and the government is not considering a sunset clause for filing for the old tax regime. He said selecting a particular tax regime is the choice of the taxpayers, but the shift towards the new regime has been very good. He noted that insofar as presumptive tax cases, about 97 per cent of the taxpayers have moved to the new tax regime, while about 60% of corporate income is now being reported under the new tax regime.
CBDT Chairman said ‘we believe, with the new minimum alternate tax (MAT) provisions coming in the FY27 Budget, it will also persuade people to move to the new tax regime'. MAT, meant only for companies, is calculated at the rate of 15 per cent of book profit and is chargeable only when it is more than the tax on income. He said the Budget has proposed treating MAT as the final tax and reducing its rate to 14% from 15% under the old regime.
Talking on the proposed increase in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivatives trading in budget, he hoped that this move will certainly dissuade retail investors from very aggressively taking up this exercise. He said only time would tell how much it would curb, but this is an attempt from the department and the government to actually at least address this issue and flag this issue. He also expressed confident about meeting the revised direct tax collection target, announced in recent Budget, of Rs 24.21 lakh crore for FY26.
