What is a tax year? A simple explanation

A tax year is the 12 months from 1 April to 31 March in which you earned your income. Income earned from 01-Apr-2025 to 31-Mar-2026 belongs to the tax year 2025-26. You file the return for it after the year ends, normally by 31-Jul-2026 for most salaried people. It is one single idea with one single name, which is what the Income-tax Act, 2025 uses.

How to read "2025-26"

The label "2025-26" means the year starting in April 2025 and ending in March 2026.

Business or professional income without an audit has a later date (31 August), and accounts that need an audit have 31 October.

Which year am I filing for?

You always file for a year that has already ended. Right now, if the tax year 2025-26 ended on 31-Mar-2026, that is the year you file for, using the income you earned in it. The salary you are earning today belongs to the tax year 2026-27, which you file for after 01-Apr-2027.

Filing for a tax year only opens on 1 April after it ends, because a filed return, and a refund against it, cannot exist before then. Documents such as the AIS are different: they are published bit by bit during the year, so you can look at them for the year still running.

Why the name matters

Under the older law, the year in which you filed was called the assessment year and the year in which you earned the income was called the previous year, which confused many people. The portal and some older forms still label a return by the assessment year, so a return for income earned in 2025-26 can appear as 2026-27 on those screens.

If you see a year on the portal that looks one ahead of your income year, subtract one. TaxCare does this for you and always shows the tax year of the income.

Which law applies to each year

The Income-tax Act, 2025 came into force on 1 April 2026. Its first tax year is 2026-27, and the returns for it are filed in 2027. Section numbers are renumbered in the new Act, but the ideas you use to file (income heads, deductions, slabs) carry over. See what changed for individuals under the Income-tax Act, 2025.

The Income Tax Department confirms that the Income-tax Act, 2025 takes effect on 1 April 2026, and that a tax year is a twelve-month period within an April–March year, replacing the "previous year" of the 1961 Act. A business set up part-way through a year can have a shorter first tax year.

The tax year and deadlines

Everything in a return runs on the tax year:

• Due date: counted from the end of the tax year (31 July after it, for most people). See ITR due dates for the tax year 2026-27.
• Advance tax: paid inside the tax year, on 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March, at 15%, 45%, 75% and 100% of the tax.
• Belated and revised returns: their windows are measured from the end of the tax year.
• Tax-saving investments: to count for a tax year, they generally must be made within it, that is by 31 March.

What if I changed jobs in the year?

Nothing special. All your income from 1 April to 31 March goes into one return for that tax year, with TDS from every employer. See how to file ITR with multiple Form 16s.

How TaxCare helps

TaxCare asks for the tax year, not for the year of filing, and shows the year in the same way on every screen. It brings in the income and TDS for the right year from the portal and picks Form 26AS or Form 168 depending on the year. If the portal returns the other style of year, TaxCare converts it before you see it. See how to file an income tax return online and pricing.

This guide gives general information and is not professional tax advice.