Income Tax all about it:

Income tax is a tax levied directly by the central government on the incomes earned by the individuals and other non-individual entities such as Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), partnership firm and so on during a financial year. These various sources of income include salary, pension, capital gains, sale of financial investments, interest income, other incomes and so on.

Unlike the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council where the Union Finance Minister and State Finance Ministers decide the rates, the income tax rates are announced by the Finance Minister during the year’s Union Budget.

The rate at which your total income earned during the year will be taxed depends on the slab in which your income falls. Over and above the income tax, a cess and surcharge is levied. The cess is payable by all taxpayers. For those earning more than Rs 50 lakh a year, a surcharge is levied between 10 percent and 37 percent.

The total income earned by a taxpayer during a financial year has to be reported to the government in the assessment year by filing income tax return (ITR filing).

Financial year is the year in which income is earned by a taxpayer; a financial year is between April 1 and March 31. Assessment year is the year immediately following the financial year for which the return is to be filed.

Income earned from various sources such as salary, pension, interest from fixed deposits (FDs), savings account, capital gains from sale of house, equity mutual funds, debt mutual funds and so on have to be reported in ITR.