Tax

The regime choice is arithmetic, not preference, and it is worth doing properly once a year rather than carrying last year’s answer forward. The new regime offers lower slab rates and removes most deductions; the old regime keeps the deductions and charges more per slab. Which one costs you less depends entirely on how much you can actually claim — not how much you could theoretically claim if you restructured your finances around the tax code.

That last distinction is where most advice goes wrong. An investment made only to save tax has to clear a higher bar than the tax it saves, because you are also locking up money and accepting whatever return the instrument gives. If you were going to make the investment anyway, the deduction is a genuine bonus. If you would not have, the deduction is paying you to make a decision you had already decided against.

Filing itself is more forgiving than its reputation. Most salaried filers need one form, one set of pre-filled figures to check rather than enter, and a careful read of the sections the pre-fill tends to get wrong — interest income and capital gains being the usual culprits. The guides below assume you want to understand what you are confirming rather than click through it.