Budget 2025: FM Nirmala Sitharaman says nearly 90 lakh paid additional tax; extends time limit for updated tax returns

Budget 2025: The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama on while presenting the Union Budget on February 1 said that nearly 90 lakh taxpayers voluntarily updated their incomes by paying additional tax.

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The Finance Minister also extended the time-limit for filing the updated returns from two years to four years.

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In her budget speech, Finance Minister Sitharamn said, “In line with this, we brought in updated return facility in 2022 for voluntary compliance by taxpayers who had omitted to report their correct income. Our trust in taxpayers was proved right. Nearly 90 lakh taxpayers voluntarily updated their incomes by paying additional tax. Taking this trust further, I now propose to extend the time limit to file updated returns for any assessment year, from the current limit of two years to four years.”

In addition to this, FM Sitharaman also unveiled the "transformative" tax reforms that ranged from a simpler income tax regime to a higher tax collected at source (TCS) threshold for remittances and income tax benefits for middle class.

In 2025-26 Budget, FM promised to bring a simpler, less volumnous new law to replace six decades old law governing income tax, saying it will have the spirit of "Nyay" (justice) and will work on the principle of "trust first, scrutinize later".

The Budget 2025-26 announced relief to the middle class with rejigged slabs. Sitharaman announced that annual income of up to ₹12 lakh will be exempt from I-T under the new income tax regime. For salaried taxpayers, this income threshold will be ₹12.75 lakh after taking into account standard deduction.

As per the rejig, for people earning more than ₹12 lakh per annum, there will be nil tax for income up to ₹4 lakh, 5 per cent for income between ₹4 and 8 lakh, 10 per cent for ₹8-12 lakh, and 15 per cent for ₹12-16 lakh. A 20 per cent income tax will be levied on income between ₹16 and 20 lakh, 25 per cent on ₹20-24 lakh and 30 per cent above ₹24 lakh per annum.

A tax payer in the new regime with an income of ₹12 lakh will get a benefit of ₹80,000 in tax. A person having income of ₹18 lakh will get a benefit of ₹70,000 in tax. A person with an income of ₹25 lakh gets a benefit of ₹1.10 lakh.

(With inputs from agencies)