How the calculation works on Rs 1,50,000 / month
At Rs 1,50,000 a month, tax stops being pocket change. That's Rs 18,00,000 a year, which puts you in the 11% slab. The income above Rs 12,00,000 is taxed at 11%, on top of the Rs 6,000 carried over from the band below, so you land at Rs 72,000 for the year, or Rs 6,000 a month. In FY 2025-26 the same salary paid exactly the same tax. Your effective rate is 4%, but your marginal rate is now 11%, so this is where I notice raises starting to feel the bite a little.
That works out to roughly Rs 6,000 a month deducted from your gross, leaving you with Rs 1,44,000 take-home.
What changes if you're not salaried?
By Rs 18,00,000 a year the gap between salaried and business tax is hard to miss: a freelancer or AOP on the same income pays Rs 2,30,000, against your Rs 72,000. The big exception is IT export work. If you're registered with PSEB, the bank deducts 0.25% from your foreign-currency export proceeds, and if you file your return that can be the final tax on that income. On the same amount it comes to Rs 4,500.