Mumbai, May 8 (IANS) The government’s newly implemented Income Tax Act 2025 has made India’s tax system simpler, easier to understand and more taxpayer-friendly, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (IT & TP) Nirupama Kotru said on Friday.

Speaking to IANS on the sidelines of an awareness programme here, she said the reforms are aimed at helping ordinary citizens file returns without confusion and reducing dependence on tax professionals for basic compliance.

“There has been no change in policy and India’s tax regime continues to remain taxpayer-friendly, with some of the lowest tax rates globally. The main objective behind the new Income-Tax Act 2025 and Income Tax Rules 2026 is to simplify tax compliance so that ordinary taxpayers can easily understand and file taxes without confusion,” she said.

“We have simplified terminology, reduced sections, introduced multilingual brochures, and provided facilities like the ‘Aaykar Sathi’ chatbot and information on the Income Tax website to help taxpayers resolve queries from home itself,” she told IANS.

According to her, India’s tax system is already highly taxpayer-friendly, and the latest reforms will further improve people’s ability to understand and file taxes with ease.

Kotru said there has been no major shift in the government’s tax policy and that India continues to maintain one of the lowest tax rates in the world.

She credited the progressive budgets introduced by the Finance Minister over the years for helping maintain a taxpayer-friendly environment.

She acknowledged that while the tax system has become simpler over time, many people still perceive it as complicated.

According to her, taxpayers often believe they need a chartered accountant to file returns and struggle to understand how much tax applies to different types of income. As a result, even honest taxpayers sometimes end up confused about compliance requirements.

Kotru said the government’s broader goal is to bring more people into the tax system, but technical language and complex procedures have discouraged many individuals from participating. To address this issue, the new Income Tax Act and Rules have been drafted in a simpler format so that people can understand tax-related provisions more easily and file their returns independently.

–IANS

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