Free Online Tools for India

GST in India has four main slabs: 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. Most services sit at 18%, packaged food is commonly 5% or 12%, and 28% is reserved for items such as cars, tobacco and aerated drinks, some of which also carry a compensation cess on top. Gold is taxed at a separate 3%, and unbranded staples like fresh vegetables are exempt. The GST calculator lets you pick the slab and switch between tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive amounts, which is the step people most often get backwards on an invoice.

Exclusive means the tax is added on top: on 1,000 at 18% you pay 1,180. Inclusive means the tax is already inside the figure, so 1,180 inclusive of 18% contains a base of 1,000 and 180 of tax. To pull the tax out of an inclusive amount you divide by 1.18, not multiply by 0.18 — that second method is the common mistake and it understates the base every time. Both directions are handled by the calculator so you do not have to remember which is which.

The exemption is the LEAST of three figures: the HRA you actually received; 50% of basic salary plus dearness allowance if you live in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai, or 40% anywhere else; and the rent you paid minus 10% of that same salary figure. Because it is the least of three, paying more rent stops helping once one of the other two limits binds. One practical point that catches people: if your annual rent crosses 1,00,000 you must give your landlord's PAN to your employer, or the exemption can be denied at assessment.

The new regime has lower slab rates but removes most deductions, while the old regime keeps 80C, 80D, HRA and the rest at higher rates. There is no universally better answer: it turns on how much you actually claim. As a rough guide, someone with a home loan, full 80C usage and real HRA often stays ahead in the old regime, while someone with few deductions usually pays less under the new one. The income tax calculator runs both and shows the difference rather than guessing for you.

PPF interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the 5th and the last day of each month, but credited only once a year at the end of March. So a deposit made on the 6th earns nothing for that month, which is why depositing before the 5th matters. The account runs 15 full financial years from the end of the year it was opened, with a 1.5 lakh annual ceiling and a 500 minimum. It is EEE — the deposit, the interest and the maturity are all tax-free — which is why its effective return beats a taxable FD at the same headline rate.

India's financial year runs 1 April to 31 March, and the assessment year is the one after it: income earned in FY 2025-26 is assessed in AY 2026-27. This matters because tax slabs, PPF limits and TDS thresholds all reset in April, not January. When a calculator here asks for a year, it means the financial year, and any threshold it applies is the one in force for that year.

India groups digits differently. After the first three from the right, digits are grouped in twos: 1,00,000 is one lakh and 1,00,00,000 is one crore. Western grouping would write those as 100,000 and 10,000,000. The rupees-in-words tool follows the Indian system because that is what banks require on a cheque, and getting it wrong on a written amount is a common reason a cheque is returned.

Because bigha is not a standardised unit. It varies by state and sometimes by district: roughly 27,000 sq ft in parts of Uttar Pradesh, about 27,225 sq ft in Bihar as a pucca bigha, and materially smaller in parts of Rajasthan, West Bengal and Gujarat. There is no single national figure, so the converter asks which state you mean instead of quietly picking one. For any registry or sale document, confirm the local figure with the tehsil office rather than relying on any online tool, including this one.