A price index is not what holding the index paid: the dividends compound outside it, worth 1.34 points a year over the last decade
The short answer
The headline index is a price return: when a constituent goes ex-dividend it records the fall and never the payment. Rebuilt twice from the exchange's own files and checked against the published total return index, the dividends it leaves out were worth 1.34 points a year over the decade to 18 September 2026: 100 became 265.9 on price and 300.0 with dividends reinvested, an ending value 12.8 per cent larger. The total return index is a ceiling, not an account: it reinvests every dividend gross, at the ex-date close, for nothing. Measured since April 2020, delay and cost barely register and tax does: a holder taxed at 31.2 per cent, paid a month late and paying costs keeps about two thirds of the gap. The benchmark rule is settled and has moved address: mutual funds have benchmarked to the total return variant since 1 February 2018, and the rule now lives in paragraph 7.23 of the master circular of 20 March 2026, after the 1996 regulations the original circular relied on were repealed on 1 April 2026. Any record that contains dividends has to be judged against a benchmark that does too. Measured, not a forecast.
The difference between the two versions of an index looks like a footnote and behaves like a subsidy: any record that includes dividends starts ahead of the headline level by the yield, compounded, before a single decision has been judged. This page measures that head start on the Nifty 50, proves the instrument two ways, and prices what the published total return series itself leaves out.
A price index records the fall and not the payment
A price index is the free float market value of its constituents divided by a divisor, and nothing else. When a constituent goes ex-dividend its price opens lower by roughly the dividend, because the right to that cash no longer travels with the share. The index records the fall. It has no line on which to record the payment, so a rupee that moved from the company to its owners appears in the series as a rupee lost.
The provider makes one exception, and it matters to anyone rebuilding the numbers. Its methodology document of June 2026 treats a dividend of 2 per cent or more of the share price on the announcement date, and any dividend paid at shorter notice to the exchange, as special: the price index is adjusted through its divisor so it does not fall, and the dividend is kept out of the total return index so it is not counted twice. The gap between the two versions is therefore made of ordinary dividends only. A special dividend is invisible in the comparison, because both versions treat it the same way.
Five series are published on the same fifty stocks, and they answer five different questions. Confusing two of them is how most comparisons go wrong.
| Series | What it adds to price | What it leaves out | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price index | Nothing; specials of 2 per cent or more are absorbed by the divisor | Every ordinary dividend | The headline level on every screen |
| Total return index | Ordinary dividends, reinvested across the index at the ex-date close | Tax, delay and cost | The provider's data service and factsheet |
| Net total return index | Dividends after 23.92 per cent withholding, less a tax charge on bonus issues | Everything that differs between a foreign institution and you | Published for three indices, this one included |
| Dividend points | Ordinary dividends as index points, a running total | Reinvestment: it is a tally, not a return | The exchange's daily index file |
| Dividend yield column | Twelve months of dividends, specials included, over today's value | Timing: last year's payouts at today's price | The same daily file |
The last two rows are the raw material for a rebuild, and they disagree by construction. The points series credits each ordinary dividend on its ex-date. The yield column, on the provider's own definition, divides twelve months of final, interim and special dividends by today's index value, so it includes specials the price index has already absorbed, and it lags.
The total return index reinvests at the ex-date close, in full, for nothing
The provider's formula is short. Today's total return level is yesterday's, multiplied by today's price level plus the day's indexed dividend, over yesterday's price level. The indexed dividend is the rupee payout of every constituent going ex that day, free float adjusted, divided by the index divisor. The methodology places the reinvestment after the close on the ex-date and into the index as a whole, in proportion to weights, not into the stock that paid.
Each part of that sentence is an assumption no holder can meet. At the ex-date close no cash exists: section 127 of the Companies Act 2013 gives a company thirty days from declaration to pay, and a final dividend is declared at the annual general meeting, often after the record date. The reinvestment is gross, while every dividend distributed on or after 1 April 2020 has been taxable in the shareholder's hands at the shareholder's own rate, since the Finance Act 2020 ended the dividend distribution tax companies used to pay; the guide to dividend taxation covers the withholding and the rest. And the reinvestment is free and infinitely divisible: nobody spreads a few hundred rupees across fifty stocks in index proportions, and anyone who buys back pays brokerage, transaction tax and stamp duty.
So the two indices bracket the holder rather than describe one: a floor that throws the dividend away and a ceiling that spends it at a moment and a price nobody had, gross of a tax the holder pays. The index guide makes the floor and ceiling point in general terms; the rest of this page measures both, and the distance from the ceiling to a real account.
Rebuilding the total return twice, and checking it against publication
A benchmark that cannot be reproduced is a number taken on trust, and reproducing this one turns out to be the only way to learn what its published history contains. The two methods share no input except the price index.
Method (a), from the dividend points. Take the daily increase in the exchange's Nifty50 Dividend Points series as the day's indexed dividend and compound it with the provider's formula. The series resets to zero after each March derivatives settlement, 14 times in the span, and was revised downward twice, by 7.48 points on 16 June 2015 and 1.61 on 5 February 2018; each revision is treated as a correction of the earlier credit.
Method (b), from the yield column. Accrue the previous session's yield for the calendar days to the next session and compound. It is cruder, for the two reasons above, and that is its use: if two instruments with different flaws land in the same place, neither flaw is driving the answer.
The published series was downloaded from the provider's historical data service and checked first against the provider's factsheet dated 31 August 2026: all twelve return figures on it, price, total and net over four periods, reproduce to the second decimal.
| Window | Years | Price index | Rebuilt from dividend points | Rebuilt from dividend yield | Published total return | Dividend points minus published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec 2012 to 29 Apr 2016 | 3.33 | 8.93 | 10.54 | 10.48 | 10.16 | +0.380 |
| 2 May 2016 to 18 September 2026 | 10.38 | 11.13 | 12.53 | 12.54 | 12.53 | 0.000 |
| The decade, 16 Sep 2016 to 18 September 2026 | 10.00 | 10.27 | 11.61 | 11.67 | 11.61 | 0.000 |
| Whole span, 31 Dec 2012 to 18 September 2026 | 13.71 | 10.54 | 11.99 | 11.99 | 11.90 | +0.094 |
Over the whole span the two rebuilt series agree to 0.004 points a year, 11.992 per cent against 11.987, which is the proof that the instrument works. From 2 May 2016, method (a) and the published series are the same series: the largest difference in level at any session over the following 10.4 years is 0.015 per cent, the size of rounding in a points series quoted to two decimals. Method (b) wanders by up to 0.87 per cent in level, because its yield lags the payouts, and still finishes within 0.012 points a year of publication. Before May 2016 the published series is the odd one out.
On the 87 dividend days worth at least one index point before the boundary, the published series credits a median of 76.4 per cent of that day's dividend points, nine days in ten between 72.9 and 79.5 per cent; on the 384 such days from 30 May 2016, 100.0 per cent. On the same early days the published net series credits a median 4.2 per cent more than the gross one, which a series net of tax cannot do. The effect is 0.38 points a year over the span to April 2016, 10.16 per cent published against 10.54 rebuilt, and its cause could not be established from the provider's public documents. The consequence is narrow and real: any comparison starting before mid 2016, including the since inception figures of older funds, inherits it; a ten year window measured today starts after it.
Measured: 1.34 points a year, compounding to an ending value 12.8 per cent larger
Over the decade from 16 September 2016 to 18 September 2026, where the rebuilt and published series are identical, the price index compounded at 10.27 per cent a year and the total return index at 11.61 per cent. A hundred rupees became 265.9 on price and 300.0 with dividends reinvested, so the price index showed only 83 per cent of the gain. Over the whole span from 31 December 2012, 100 became 395 on price and 467 on the published total return index, or 473 rebuilt.
| Year | Price index | Total return, published | Gap, points | Total return, rebuilt from dividend points | Net total return, published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 6.76 | 8.07 | 1.32 | 8.46 | 7.75 |
| 2014 | 31.39 | 32.90 | 1.51 | 33.37 | 32.33 |
| 2015 | -4.06 | -3.01 | 1.05 | -2.67 | -3.79 |
| 2016 | 3.01 | 4.39 | 1.38 | 4.48 | 3.78 |
| 2017 | 28.65 | 30.27 | 1.62 | 30.27 | 28.61 |
| 2018 | 3.15 | 4.64 | 1.49 | 4.64 | 3.56 |
| 2019 | 12.02 | 13.48 | 1.45 | 13.48 | 13.15 |
| 2020 | 14.90 | 16.14 | 1.24 | 16.14 | 15.84 |
| 2021 | 24.12 | 25.59 | 1.47 | 25.59 | 25.14 |
| 2022 | 4.33 | 5.69 | 1.36 | 5.69 | 5.21 |
| 2023 | 20.03 | 21.30 | 1.27 | 21.30 | 20.80 |
| 2024 | 8.80 | 10.09 | 1.28 | 10.09 | 8.51 |
| 2025 | 10.51 | 11.88 | 1.37 | 11.88 | 9.20 |
| 2026 to 18 September | -10.65 | -9.81 | 0.84 | -9.81 | -10.14 |
The gap is steady because it is the yield. Across full calendar years it ran from 1.05 points in 2015 to 1.62 in 2017, while the yield column ranged from 0.93 to 2.00 per cent. Across all 2,328 one year windows starting from May 2016 it ran from 0.88 to 2.01 points, median 1.38; across five year windows, from 1.24 to 1.47 a year. It is not a premium the market pays for anything. It is the part of the same return delivered as cash rather than as price, which is why it does not change sign in a falling year: in 2015 the price index lost 4.06 per cent and the total return index 3.01.
What a resident holder keeps: the frictions, measured
The frictions can be priced on the same data, over 31 March 2020 to 18 September 2026, a window in which every dividend was taxable in the holder's hands. The instrument is a simulated account that receives the dividend stream implied by the published total return series and changes one assumption at a time: when the cash arrives, what tax is taken, what the purchase costs. With no friction it reproduces the published index to the last digit, which the build asserts.
| Version | Setting | Annual return, per cent | Points a year below the total return index | Share of the dividend gap kept, per cent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published total return index | none | 18.09 | 0.000 | 100.0 |
| Cash arrives 21 sessions later | about a month | 18.07 | 0.022 | 98.4 |
| Cash arrives 42 sessions later | about two months | 18.05 | 0.042 | 96.9 |
| Reinvestment cost of 0.25 per cent | on each purchase | 18.08 | 0.003 | 99.7 |
| Dividend taxed at 10.4 per cent | 10 per cent slab | 17.94 | 0.145 | 89.5 |
| Dividend taxed at 20.8 per cent | 20 per cent slab | 17.80 | 0.289 | 79.1 |
| Dividend taxed at 31.2 per cent | 30 per cent slab | 17.65 | 0.433 | 68.7 |
| All three together | 31.2 per cent, a month, 0.25 per cent | 17.64 | 0.450 | 67.5 |
| Net at 23.92 per cent on ordinary dividends | the net series' rate | 17.76 | 0.332 | 76.0 |
| Published net total return index | also taxes bonus issues | 17.05 | 1.041 | 24.7 |
| Price index | no dividend | 16.70 | 1.383 | 0.0 |
Timing and cost, the frictions that attract the most attention, barely register: cash arriving about a month late costs 0.022 points a year, two months 0.042, and a 0.25 per cent cost on each purchase 0.003. Tax is the friction. At 31.2 per cent, a 30 per cent marginal rate plus the 4 per cent cess, the holder loses 0.43 of the 1.38 points a year, and with all three together keeps 67.5 per cent of the gap. The honest ceiling for a resident in the 30 per cent slab over this window was about 17.64 per cent a year, not 18.09. The delay cost depends on the path, since late reinvestment costs more in a rising market, and this window rose strongly.
Gross, net and after tax are three different numbers
Gross is the total return index, every ordinary dividend reinvested in full. It is the right benchmark for a structure that receives dividends untaxed, which a mutual fund does: a scheme's own income is exempt under section 10(23D) of the 1961 Act, and its unit holders meet tax as capital gains when they redeem from a growth option. What an index fund delivers is the gross series less its expense ratio and tracking error, which is why the expense ratio belongs beside any benchmark comparison, and why paragraph 4.5.4 of the master circular makes index funds publish their tracking difference monthly.
Net is the provider's net total return index, and it is net for one investor only. Its methodology deducts 23.92 per cent from each dividend: the 20 per cent withholding rate for a non-resident institution without treaty relief, a 15 per cent surcharge and the 4 per cent cess. The published history applies it exactly where the law changed: on dividend days from May 2016 to March 2020 the net series keeps a median 99.97 per cent of the gross dividend, and from the first dividend day after, 29 April 2020, 76.09 per cent. It also taxes special dividends and treats each bonus issue as income taxed at the same rate, and that charge dominates. Since April 2020, taxing ordinary dividends alone would have cost 0.33 points a year; the published net series fell 1.04 points a year behind the gross one. Its two largest one day deductions, 1.59 per cent on 26 August 2025 and 0.99 per cent on 28 October 2024, fall on bonus ex-dates in the exchange's corporate action list, and in 2024 and 2025 the net index finished below the price index, 8.51 per cent against 8.80 and 9.20 against 10.51.
After tax exists in as many versions as there are holders: a resident individual pays slab tax on each dividend and capital gains tax on the sale, a fund unit holder only the second, a foreign institution roughly what the net series assumes. None of these is the benchmark. They are what the benchmark is for, which is separating what a manager or a method added from what holding the market delivered, before anyone's tax.
The benchmark rule: total return from 1 February 2018, and where it lives now
The regulator's circular SEBI/HO/IMD/DF3/CIR/P/2018/04 of 4 January 2018 observed that most schemes were benchmarked to the price variant of an index, which "only captures capital gains", and directed that every mutual fund scheme's performance be benchmarked to the total return variant of its chosen index from 1 February 2018. Where the total return series does not reach back to a scheme's inception, the scheme uses a composite: price growth up to the date the total return series begins, total return growth after it, compounded into one CAGR and disclosed as such. The circular was issued under section 11(1) of the SEBI Act read with regulation 77 of the Mutual Funds Regulations of 1996.
That is the version almost every page cites, and its footing has since moved twice. The standalone circular now sits in the list of rescinded circulars appended to the regulator's Master Circular for Mutual Funds, its text carried into the master circular. And the 1996 Regulations no longer exist: the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 2026, notified on 14 January 2026, repeal them by regulation 85 from 1 April 2026. The rule survives intact at paragraph 7.23 of the Master Circular for Mutual Funds dated 20 March 2026, in force from 1 April 2026, which restates the requirement and the composite CAGR in the same terms, down to the same 1995 to 2017 worked example. A page that sends readers to the 2018 circular is pointing at a rescinded document issued under repealed regulations.
| Who | Rule | From | Instrument |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mutual fund schemes | Performance benchmarked to the total return variant of the chosen index; composite CAGR where no total return history exists | 1 February 2018 | Circular SEBI/HO/IMD/DF3/CIR/P/2018/04 of 4 January 2018, now rescinded as a separate circular |
| Mutual fund schemes, today | The same rule, restated in full with the 1995 to 2017 worked example | 1 April 2026 | Master Circular for Mutual Funds of 20 March 2026, paragraph 7.23 |
| Mutual fund disclosure | Scheme return against the benchmark total return index, as CAGR over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years and since inception | In force | Same master circular, paragraph 6.9.1(a) |
| Scheme categories | Two tiers: a first tier benchmark reflecting the category, published by the funds' association, and an optional second tier | Circular of 27 October 2021 | Same master circular, paragraph 7.22 |
| Portfolio managers | One of at most three benchmarks per strategy, prescribed by the portfolio managers' association, whose list states that all equity indices are total return | 1 April 2023 | Circular SEBI/HO/IMD/IMD-PoD-2/P/CIR/2022/172 of 16 December 2022 |
| Investment advisers and research analysts | Past performance in advertisements only through risk and return metrics a verification agency has checked; the method is left to the agency and the circular names no benchmark | 4 May 2026, regular service | Circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD/P/CIR/2025/51 of 4 April 2025, paragraphs 40 and 41 |
The size of what changed in 2018 is the gap in the years before it. From 2013 to 2017 the published total return index led the price index by 1.05 to 1.62 points a year, or by 1.39 to 1.98 on the exchange's own dividend points. A fund that reported a point a year of outperformance against a price benchmark in those years was, on these numbers, behind the total return of its own benchmark.
The null has to include the dividend
The rule for funds is a special case of a general one: a record and its benchmark have to be built on the same convention. A fund's net asset value includes the dividends its holdings paid, and so does a portfolio return computed from the cash actually received, and so does a backtest run on dividend adjusted closes, the convention the guide to adjusting a price series takes apart. Measured against the price index, each is handed the yield before it has done anything: holding the total return index and making no decision at all beat the price index by 1.34 points a year over the decade.
For a strategy in the market only part of the time, the handout scales with exposure. A deliberately plain rule, present when the previous close is above the mean of the previous 200 closes, was in the market for 77.0 per cent of sessions over the decade, and the dividends it collected added 0.96 points a year to its record, close to 0.77 times the 1.34 point gap.
| Record | Annual return | Against the price index | Against the total return index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price index, held throughout | 10.27 | 0.00 | -1.34 |
| Total return index, held throughout | 11.61 | +1.34 | 0.00 |
| Rule, price moves only | 5.91 | -4.36 | -5.70 |
| Rule, with the dividends it collected | 6.87 | -3.40 | -4.74 |
| Rule, with dividends and overnight cash when out | 8.15 | -2.12 | -3.46 |
| Matched null: 77 per cent total return index, rest overnight cash | 10.41 | +0.14 | -1.20 |
Against the price index the rule's full record trails by 2.12 points a year; against the total return index by 3.46; against an exposure matched null, the same 77 per cent in the total return index and the rest in overnight cash, rebalanced each session, by 2.26. Only the last isolates the rule's timing, the thing a rule claims to add, and the article on the right null builds that comparison properly with randomly timed versions. The dividend is the first thing a null must contain, not the last.
Verification does not settle this. Under the circular of 4 April 2025, investment advisers and research analysts may refer to past performance in advertisements only through risk and return metrics checked by a verification agency, a service in regular operation since 4 May 2026. The circular leaves the method to the agency and does not mention a benchmark at all, so what a verified return is compared with remains the reader's question, one of the six in the guide to reading a published claim.
What neither index tells you
The total return index is not investable: every real holding sits below it by cost, tax and tracking, and for a resident the tax is most of that distance. It is not a forecast: the gap is the dividend yield, which the market sets, so the next decade's gap will be whatever the next decade's payouts are. And it is only as good as its history: before May 2016 the published series does not match the exchange's own dividend record, so a comparison across that date should rebuild the series or say which version it used.
What it is for is narrow and important. It is the market a holder could have had with no skill and no decisions, before anyone's tax, and the only version against which a claim of skill means anything. Rebuilding it from its parts before trusting a comparison is method rather than a fact to memorise, and it is how performance evaluation is taught here.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a price index and a total return index?
A price index tracks only the prices of its constituents, so when one goes ex-dividend it records the fall and never the cash paid. A total return index adds each ordinary dividend back at the ex-date close and reinvests it across the index. The first measures what prices did; the second what holding the basket paid, before tax and costs.
How far apart were the two over the last decade?
From 16 September 2016 to 18 September 2026 the price index compounded at 10.27 per cent a year and the total return index at 11.61 per cent, a gap of 1.34 points a year. One hundred rupees became 265.9 on price and 300.0 with dividends reinvested. Measured from the exchange's daily files and the provider's published series.
When exactly does the total return index reinvest a dividend?
After the close on the ex-date, across the whole index in proportion to weights, under the provider's methodology. Dividends of 2 per cent or more of the share price, and those paid at shorter notice, are special: the price index is adjusted so it does not fall, and they are kept out of the total return index so they are not counted twice.
Why does the total return index overstate what a shareholder earned?
It reinvests every dividend gross, on the ex-date and free. Since 1 April 2020 dividends are taxed in the holder's hands, cash arrives weeks later and buying back costs money. Measured from April 2020, a month's delay cost 0.022 points a year and a 0.25 per cent purchase cost 0.003, while tax at 31.2 per cent cost 0.43.
What is the net total return index?
A variant published for three indices that reinvests dividends after deducting 23.92 per cent, the rate its methodology assumes for a non-resident institution without treaty relief. It deducts nothing before April 2020 and 23.92 per cent after. It also taxes special dividends and bonus issues, which is why it finished below the price index in 2024 and 2025.
Do mutual funds have to benchmark against the total return index?
Yes, every scheme since 1 February 2018, under a circular of 4 January 2018. That circular is now rescinded as a standalone document and the 1996 regulations it was issued under were repealed on 1 April 2026, but the rule continues in paragraph 7.23 of the Master Circular for Mutual Funds dated 20 March 2026, with a composite CAGR where no total return history exists.
Does the same apply to portfolio managers?
In effect. From 1 April 2023, under the regulator's circular of 16 December 2022, a portfolio manager reports each approach against one of at most three benchmarks per strategy prescribed by the portfolio managers' association, whose list states that all equity indices are total return variants.
Which index should a portfolio or a backtest be compared with?
The one built on the same convention as the record. Returns that include dividends received, or a backtest on dividend adjusted prices, belong against the total return index. A strategy that was out of the market part of the time belongs against the total return index for the same share of the time and cash for the rest.
Can the total return index be rebuilt independently?
Yes. Compound the price index with the daily increase in the exchange's dividend points series using the provider's formula. From May 2016 this matches the published series to within 0.015 per cent in level. Before May 2016 the published history credits about three quarters of each day's dividend points, for reasons that could not be established.
Is the gap a forecast of what the index will pay?
No. It is the dividend yield, measured after the fact; the exchange's yield column ranged from 0.93 to 2.00 per cent over the span. Nothing on this page predicts a return, recommends a product or describes a future period.
As at 23 September 2026. Regulatory positions are stated as at 23 September 2026 and index figures run to the close of 18 September 2026. Circulars are consolidated and rescinded, index methodologies are revised, and tax provisions were renumbered on 1 April 2026; confirm the current master circular, index methodology and tax law before relying on anything here, and take advice on your own circumstances.
How these numbers were produced. Price levels, the dividend yield column, the Nifty50 Dividend Points series and the overnight rate index are read from the exchange's daily all index close files: 3,385 files, 1 January 2013 to 18 September 2026, including 14 weekend special sessions, dated by file name and matched under all three historical index names. The 31 December 2012 close is recovered from the first file's own change column. The archive lacks twelve weekday sessions in 2013 to 2016; the published series holds exactly those twelve, which the build asserts, and a return across one is a two session return that leaves every cumulative figure unchanged. The published Total Return and Net Total Return values were fetched on 23 September 2026 from the provider's historical data service, one calendar year per request, stored as _workspace/marketdata/a141-nifty50-tri-ntr.csv, and checked against the factsheet of 31 August 2026, whose quarter runs from the close of 1 July and whose five year figure uses years of 365.25 days, the convention used for every annual rate here. Method (a) compounds TR(t) = TR(t-1) x (PR(t) + D(t)) / PR(t-1), D being the day's increase in dividend points, with the 14 annual resets read as that day's dividends, the revisions of 16 June 2015 and 5 February 2018 as corrections, and the 8 sessions missing the series credited on the next session. Method (b) multiplies each session's price return by one plus the previous yield times calendar days over 365. The dividend a published series implies on a session is TR(t) / TR(t-1) x PR(t-1) minus PR(t). Rolling windows use the published series from 2 May 2016.
Frictions and the rule. The friction account starts at the close of 31 March 2020, receives the published dividend stream, taxes it on receipt, holds the cash the stated number of sessions without interest and reinvests at that close less the stated cost; cash still owed at the end counts at face value. With no friction it reproduces the published index exactly, and the build refuses to write otherwise. The trend rule and the matched null run from 16 September 2016 to 18 September 2026; the signal uses only earlier closes, and the cash leg is the exchange's overnight rate index, carried forward on the 14 sessions it was not published. Figures are gross of costs and taxes unless a table says otherwise. No random numbers are used, so there is no seed and no replication count: running tools/build-article-141.py on the same files reproduces every figure.
Not verified. Why the published total return history before May 2016 credits about three quarters of the exchange's dividend points could not be established from public documents; the provider was not asked. The verification agency's own methodology was not read, so whether it reports a benchmark comparison is unknown. Individual payment dates were not collected, so the delays are illustrative. The portfolio managers' association's benchmark list was read in its 31 March 2023 revision; later revisions were not checked. The dividend tax position and the fund exemption are stated from the 1961 Act and secondary summaries, not from the text of the Income-tax Act 2025.
Statutory transition. The Income-tax Act 1961 was replaced by the Income-tax Act 2025 with effect from 1 April 2026, and almost all section numbers changed. Provisions in this guide are identified by name and by their long-established 1961 numbering, which is how they are still indexed in most practice material and case law. The corresponding number under the 2025 Act will differ. Confirm both the current section number and the provision itself for the year you are dealing with before relying on anything here, and take advice on your own facts.
Bharath Shiksha is an educational publisher and not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or research analyst. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, fund or index product, and nothing in it is a forecast of any return.
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