What do you do if your income is between 10 lakh and 10.3 lakh?

Indian Government applies a surcharge of 10% on the total tax if your taxable income crosses 10 lakh. So if your taxable income is 10,001, are you screwed?

Well, the answer is NO. And the government takes care of you. Even though this is a fact not known to many CAs (at-least two I talked to), this is how the calculation will work.

The surcharge cannot exceed the amount being the difference of the total income and ten lakh rupees. So if my income is 10,001 the surcharge cannot cross Re 1.

I was troubled by this for almost the whole of financial year, until I saw last year ITR form which tells how surcharge needs to be calculated and the RELIEF the government providers to corner cases like me.

WHAT A REAL RELIEF IT WAS to read it in the ITR form!

This is my interpretation of the ITR form along with help from a book my office CA was carrying, so I believe it is right. But life has no guarantees and so does this particular piece of information in the blog I shared.