Income-tax Rules, 2026

What it does

The Income-tax Act, 2025 states the charge to tax and the main machinery, and leaves forms, procedure and a good deal of computational detail to rules. The Income-tax Rules, 2026 are those rules. They stand in the place of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, which were made under the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961. Section 536(1) of the 2025 Act repeals the 1961 Act, and the 2025 Act came into force on 1 April 2026.

This page is deliberately short. The firm's own reading of the Rules is limited. The note on a non-resident Indian or Overseas Citizen of India cardholder selling a flat in India records that the Rules could not be opened on the Income Tax Department's site, so their text was not read. What this page states about their content is confined to what that note says, and that is little.

Who it binds

Taxpayers, payers of income and tax deductors who have to use the prescribed forms or follow the prescribed procedure under the 2025 Act. The Rules bind through the Act: where the Act says that a statement, application or certificate is to be in a prescribed form, the form is in the Rules.

What has changed, and when

The Act came into force on 1 April 2026, and the Rules are the rules for the tax year that began on that date. The firm's note records one change reported in published commentary, which it could not check against the rule text. Until 31 March 2026, information on a payment to a non-resident was furnished in Form 15CA, with a chartered accountant's certificate in Form 15CB. The commentary reports that the Income-tax Rules, 2026 replace them with Forms 145 and 146 under rule 220. The Act itself says only that the form is prescribed. Anyone who files such a form should therefore confirm the current form and rule from the Rules and the department's site before relying on this page.

What turns on it in practice

The Rules matter in practice at the point of filing, and a mistake of form is easy to make in the first year of a new Act. A buyer of property from a non-resident deducts tax under the 2025 Act, a seller wants to remit the proceeds abroad, and the bank asks for the tax compliance documents. Which form goes with the remittance, and who signs it, is a question of the Rules.

The practice areas that depend on this are the firm's advisory work for non-resident clients and its property and tax-linked transactions. The related instruments on this site are the Income-tax Act, 1961 and the Income-tax Act, 2025, and an older transaction may be governed by the 1961 Act and the 1962 Rules while one in the year 2026-27 falls under the new pair.

Until the rule text has been read for this site, no rule number or form number is stated here as settled. Those named above are given only as the note reports them.