The Income Tax Act, 2025 replaces the Income Tax Act, 1961 and is set to apply from 1 April 2026. If you are planning to sell a property in Chennai, or your CA has mentioned this change while discussing your capital gains, here is what genuinely changes, what stays exactly the same, and what a registered valuer's certificate needs to reflect going forward.
The Income Tax Act, 2025 is a full re-enactment of India's income tax law, replacing the six-decade-old Income Tax Act, 1961. The stated purpose is simplification: removing redundant provisions, consolidating overlapping sections, and renumbering the entire Act into a cleaner structure. It is not, by design, meant to overhaul how tax is computed; it is meant to make the law easier to read and administer.
For most provisions, including the capital gains chapter that governs property sales, the substance carries forward. What changes is the section number you or your CA will cite, and in some cases how provisions are grouped.
Why this matters if you're selling property: Every valuation report prepared for income tax purposes references a specific legal provision, whether the guideline-value rule, the April 2001 fair market value rule, or the holding period test. If those citations shift, a CA using an old template or an outdated blog post (including guides on this website prior to this update) may cite a provision that no longer matches the applicable Act for that assessment year.
Based on current guidance from tax practitioners and portals tracking the transition, the following remain unchanged in substance:
| Item | Status Under the New Act |
|---|---|
| Governing statute | Income Tax Act, 2025 replaces the Income Tax Act, 1961 |
| Effective date | 1 April 2026, applying from the relevant assessment year onward |
| Section numbering | Entire Act renumbered and restructured; capital gains provisions are consolidated into a dedicated chapter |
| Computation method for capital gains | Reported as substantively unchanged: sale consideration less cost of acquisition and improvement, indexed or unindexed per acquisition date |
| Valuation methodology used by a registered valuer | Unaffected: inspection, comparable sales, and appraisal standards do not derive from section numbering |
A note on precision: Several tax portals have published old-to-new section mapping tables, and the exact new numbers for the guideline-value and 2001-fair-market-value provisions are reported differently depending on the source. Rather than repeat an unconfirmed number here, the right approach is for your CA to confirm the applicable citation against the official Income Tax Department reference for your specific assessment year. What will not change is the underlying valuation work, which is unaffected by which number the provision carries.
No, not in terms of how the valuation is done. A registered valuer's job is to establish the fair market value of a property through site inspection, comparable sales analysis, and recognised valuation methodology (Direct Comparison, Land and Building, or Residual, depending on the asset). None of that process is a function of which Act or section number governs the tax computation.
What changes is administrative: reports prepared for filings from FY 2026–27 onward should reference the Income Tax Act, 2025 rather than the 1961 Act, once the exact provision numbers are confirmed by your CA or the Income Tax Department's official concordance.
Whether your sale falls before or after 1 April 2026, the valuation requirement is the same. Get a certified report from an Income Tax Registered Valuer, ready in 2–3 working days.