Advance Tax and TDS Under the Income-tax Act, 2025

Advance tax: same math, new sections

Advance tax now sits in Sections 403–410 of the 2025 Act, replacing Sections 207–219 of the 1961 Act. The parts most people actually need:

What	1961 Act	2025 Act
Liability threshold (advance tax due once estimated tax, after TDS/TCS credit, reaches this)	Section 208 (concept)	Section 404 — ₹10,000
Computation method	—	Section 405
Instalment schedule	Section 211	Sections 407–408

The ₹10,000 threshold and the instalment percentages are unchanged from the 1961 Act — this is a renumbering, not a new obligation. For Tax Year 2026-27, the schedule is:

• 15 June 2026 — 15% of estimated tax liability
• 15 September 2026 — 45% cumulative (i.e. 30% more than June)
• 15 December 2026 — 75% cumulative
• 15 March 2027 — 100%

These are cumulative totals, not additional payments on top of the previous instalment — a common point of confusion. If you paid 15% by June and need to reach 45% by September, the September payment itself is 30%, not 45%.

Interest for getting it wrong: Sections 234A–D become 423–426

The interest provisions that apply if advance tax is short, late, or a refund turns out to be excessive are renumbered too, with the substance unchanged (1% per month, simple interest, in every case):

1961 Act	2025 Act	Covers
Section 234A	Section 423	Default in furnishing the return on time
Section 234B	Section 424	Shortfall in total advance tax paid (less than 90% of final liability by 31 March)
Section 234C	Section 425	Missing an individual instalment's percentage, even if the year-end total is fine
Section 234D	Section 426	Interest on a refund later found to be excessive

TDS: one old section, two new ones — mind the split

This is the one worth getting exactly right, because it's easy to cite the wrong half. Old Sections 192 through 196D covered TDS collectively — different sections for salary, interest, dividends, contractor payments, rent, professional fees, and so on. The 2025 Act consolidates all of it into just two sections, split by ONE distinction:

• Section 392 — TDS on salary specifically (replaces old Section 192).
• Section 393 — TDS on everything else (replaces old Sections 193–196D collectively — interest, dividends, contract payments, rent, professional fees, and more, each identified by a table row/serial number within Section 393 rather than its own section).

If you're an employer or payroll team citing the section for salary TDS specifically, that's 392, not 393 — a distinction we initially couldn't confirm ourselves, because early sources we checked cited both numbers for "TDS" without being precise about which provision each one meant. We left it flagged as unresolved rather than guessing, until sources specific enough to separate the two turned up; see how we verify for why that's the discipline here generally.

Worked example

A salaried employee's April 2026 payslip (Tax Year 2026-27) shows TDS deducted under Section 392 — not 192, since the payment falls after 1 April 2026. Their employer also pays a consultant a professional fee the same month; that TDS is deducted under Section 393, not 392, because it isn't salary. Both replace parts of what used to be a single, broader "TDS" bucket spanning Sections 192–196D under the 1961 Act.