How to read Form 16 with the income-tax calculator

Part A is the tax already paid

Part A identifies the employer and the tax deducted at source through the year. That total is what you compare with the tax the calculator estimates. If the calculator’s tax is higher, you may still owe money. If it is lower, the difference is the shape of a refund, not a promise, because the calculator is not the filing utility.

Two employers mean two Part A certificates for the same tax year. Add the salary. Do not add two separate tax computations and then add the taxes. The slabs are not linear, and the standard deduction is once.

Part B is the salary, already partly worked

Part B usually walks from gross salary, minus exempt allowances such as HRA where it applies, to a balance, then minus the standard deduction, to income chargeable under the head salaries. Deductions under Chapter VI-A, such as 80C, come after that. The income-tax calculator starts from gross and subtracts the standard deduction itself: ₹75,000 in the new regime and ₹50,000 in the old regime, capped at the salary if the salary is smaller.

So the number to type is the salary before that standard deduction. If you type the “income chargeable under salaries” line, you have already removed it on the form and the tool will remove it again. On a new-regime salary, that mistake knocks another ₹75,000 off taxable income. Add the standard deduction back when the form’s line is already net.

• Gross, before standard deduction: type it.
• Income under the head salaries, after standard deduction: add the deduction back first.
• TDS from Part A: compare it with the result. Do not type it as income.

HRA and 80C are not both automatic

Exempt HRA in the old regime is the least of three caps. The HRA calculator does that for Tax Year 2026-27. The form may show the exemption the employer allowed. Use that only if it matches the rent you can support. In the new regime the exemption is not available, even if Part B shows a figure from a payroll that assumed the old regime.

80C on the form is whatever the employer accepted. The calculator caps the field at ₹1.5 lakh and uses it only in the old regime. Do not type it into a new-regime compare and expect the tax to fall.

What the rough compare still leaves out

The calculator is a salary sketch. It does not compute capital gains, business income, or the special-rate income that sits outside the section 87A rebate. A Form 16 can look like a nil year while a share sale is not.

Employer NPS, if Part B shows it, goes in the employer-NPS field because it reduces both regimes. Interest and a second house do not belong in the gross-salary box. Re-run the compare if a bonus in March was missing from the draft form and appears on the final one.

Worked example: which line to type

Illustrative labels, not a facsimile of a form. Tax Year 2026-27. The calculator’s own standard deduction is the one that counts.

Read Part A for tax already paid and Part B for salary. Give the calculator a gross that has not yet had the standard deduction removed. Then compare its tax with the TDS, and do not treat the page as the return.

Sources

• FinanceChacha income-tax calculator, standard deduction applied inside the working
• FinanceChacha HRA calculator
• FinanceChacha: tax on a ₹12 lakh salary, for the ₹75,000 deduction and the rebate