Old vs new tax regime — FY 2026-27

Enter your salary and the deductions you could actually claim. Both regimes are computed on this year's slabs, side by side — and if the new regime wins, you'll see exactly how far the old one is from catching up.

FY 2026-27 (AY 2027-28) slabs · Updated 21 July 2026 · Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere

The landmarks that decide most cases

• ₹12.75 lakh of salary = zero tax under the new regime. The ₹75,000 standard deduction brings taxable income to ₹12,00,000, and the Section 87A rebate (up to ₹60,000) wipes the tax entirely. Just past that cliff, tax jumps sharply — the rebate vanishes as a block, not gradually.
• The old regime only wins on big deductions. Its slabs are harsher (20% starts at ₹5,00,001 of taxable income), so it needs serious deductions — 80C, HRA, home-loan interest — to overcome the new regime's head start.
• Both regimes are computed fresh each year. Salaried taxpayers can switch at filing time, so the right answer is whichever is cheaper THIS year, not loyalty to either.

The stale advice still doing the rounds

You'll still find articles claiming the old regime wins once deductions cross "₹3.5–4 lakh." That figure predates the current slabs and is simply wrong now. With the ₹12 lakh rebate ceiling and the larger standard deduction, the break-even sits far higher — at a ₹15 lakh salary the old regime needs roughly ₹6 lakh of deductions before it draws level. And below about ₹12.75 lakh of salary the old regime cannot win at all: the new regime's tax is already zero, and there is nothing left to beat.

The deduction people forget to count properly

Home-loan interest under Section 24b is capped at ₹2,00,000 for a self-occupied house — and it's the deduction people most often estimate from memory. The interest falling in a financial year comes off your amortisation schedule, not off 12 × EMI. The Unowe planner reads it from your actual loan schedule; and if you're weighing a prepayment, the prepay-vs-invest calculator shows how the cap changes that decision too.

The planner pre-fills your income and reads §24b from your loan's real schedule, encrypted on your device.