TAX
Old or new tax regime: which should a salaried woman choose?
Shweta worked for six years before discovering her employer had been deducting ₹18,000 a year for NPS that she had never claimed.
THE SHORT ANSWER
The new regime usually wins if your deductions are small, because the slab rates are lower and the standard deduction is higher. The old regime usually wins once your genuine deductions cross a threshold, typically when you have a home loan, substantial 80C investments and real health premiums. Calculate both before choosing rather than following what a colleague did.
The money nobody claims
Shweta had been working for six years before she discovered that her employer had been deducting ₹18,000 a year for the National Pension System, and that she had never once checked whether it was being claimed under Section 80CCD(1B). Her explanation was the one almost everyone gives. She thought HR handled it.
HR handles the deduction. Whether it lands in the right place on your return is your problem, and six years of an unclaimed deduction is real money that was never yours to lose.
How to actually decide
Add up the deductions you genuinely have, not the ones you could theoretically arrange.
- Section 80C, up to ₹1.5 lakh: provident fund, life insurance premiums, ELSS, principal on a home loan, children's tuition fees.
- Section 80D: health insurance premiums for yourself and for parents.
- Section 80CCD(1B), up to ₹50,000: the additional NPS deduction, over and above 80C.
- Section 24(b): home loan interest.
- House rent allowance, if you rent and your salary is structured for it.
If that total is modest, the new regime's lower rates usually leave you better off. If you have a home loan running alongside a full 80C and meaningful health premiums, the old regime often still wins. The crossover point moves with every budget, which is why the answer is a calculation rather than a rule.
Do the calculation, not the conversation
The income tax department publishes a comparison utility. Enter your figures under both regimes and read the two numbers. It takes fifteen minutes and it is the only method that accounts for your actual situation rather than a colleague's.
Salaried employees can switch between regimes each year, so this is not a decision you are locked into.
The wider point
The specific sections will change. The habit that matters is reading your own Form 16 and your own Form 26AS once a year, and checking that what was deducted matches what was claimed. Women who assume somebody else is checking tend to find out years later that nobody was.
Slab rates, thresholds and section limits change with each Union Budget. Verify current figures before you file.
ONE MOVE THIS WEEK
Open last year's Form 16 and find every deduction claimed. If anything your employer deducted is missing from it, that is money to recover.
