New Delhi, 25 March

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on 25 March that the new Income Tax Bill will be discussed in the monsoon session of Parliament. 

Responding to a discussion on the Finance Bill 2025 in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said the new Income Tax Bill introduced in the House on 13 February is currently being considered by the Select Committee. 

The Select Committee has been directed to submit its report by the first day of the next session of Parliament. Sitharaman said, "...we will introduce it (the new Income Tax Bill) in the monsoon session." 

The new bill has 2.6 lakh words, down from 5.12 lakh in the Income Tax Act. The number of sections is 536 as against 819 effective sections in the current law. The number of chapters has also been halved from 47 to 23. The Income Tax Bill 2025 contains 57 tables compared to 18 in the existing Act and removes 1,200 provisions and 900 explanations.

The monsoon session of Parliament is usually held in July and lasts till August. The Income Tax Department had earlier said that the simplified Income Tax Bill, which is half the size of the Income Tax Act of 1961, seeks to achieve tax certainty by reducing the scope of litigation and new interpretation.