Form 16 went with the Income-tax Act 1961, repealed on 1 April 2026. The certificate you owe your employees for this tax year is Form No. 130, its parts are in a different order, and every section number inside it has moved. Eleven chapters, every number read from the Act, the Rules or the Income Tax Department itself rather than from somebody's summary.
Thirteen pages. Two mapping tables, old section against new, then twelve checks on one page.
Six forms renumbered, with the Act and rule behind each. Then the rule that decides which law your March payslip falls under, and which one April does.
Part B is no longer the salary computation. And the certificate is generated on TRACES, not by you, which is the answer to the question everybody asks.
The whole calendar on one page, with the dates for tax year 2026-27 spelled out beside the rule that sets each one.
Twenty-five lines remapped, from salary and leave encashment down to the rebate, and what section 202(2) does to that list on the default regime. Then the three forms that feed it, two from the employee and one you produce yourself.
Who issues what when there were two employers, the five separate charges these failures carry, the 30% disallowance that is not about lateness at all, and the whole guide condensed to a page you can work down.
Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) computes salary TDS month by month and keeps the record the quarterly statement is built from.
Search how to generate Form 16 and you will be told about section 203, rule 31 and Form 24Q. All three were repealed on 1 April 2026.
The Income-tax Act 1961 gave way to the Income-tax Act 2025, and the Income-tax Rules 1962 to the Income-tax Rules 2026. The certificate survived the change and does the same job it always did, which is to tell an employee what they were paid, what was deducted, and that the deduction reached the Government. It is simply called Form No. 130 now, and it is issued under section 395(4) rather than section 203. That is a statutory duty on the employer, which is why a salary certificate, written on request and in whatever words you choose, is a different document doing a different job.
The renumbering does not stop at the cover. Form 16 had two parts and everybody called the salary computation Part B. Form No. 130 has three, and the salary computation is Part C (Annexure-I). Part B is the quarter by quarter reconciliation of tax deducted against tax deposited. A payroll team that goes looking for Part B in the old sense will find something else sitting there, correctly, under the same name.
Inside the computation, every number a payroll team knows by heart has moved. Section 80C is section 123. Section 80D is 126 and 80G is 133. The rebate is 156 and the relief on arrears is 157. The standard deduction sits in the Table under section 19(1), alongside the professional tax your state charges, and gratuity, commuted pension and leave encashment have moved out of the exemptions altogether into that same Table. What is left of the exemptions sits in Schedule III, read with section 11, entry by entry: leave travel is entry 8, house rent is entry 11, and the special allowances that carry conveyance are entries 12 and 13.
Knowing where a deduction moved to is only half of it. Section 202(2) decides whether the employee can claim it at all, and on the default regime most of Chapter VIII, the professional tax, most of the special allowances and the house rent exemption are all gone. That last one is worked through in the HRA exemption calculator, which puts the answer at zero for anyone who has not opted out. The monthly wage register the salary itself comes off is a separate job, and a separate download: the salary sheet and payroll register.
Nothing in the salary TDS chain kept its old name. This is four of the six rows in chapter 1, with the section and the rule behind each.
| You used to file | You now file | Old section | New section | New rule | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form 16 | Form No. 130 | s.203 | s.395(4) | 215(1) | 01 |
| Form 24Q | Form No. 138 | s.200(3) | s.397(3)(b) | 219 | 01 |
| Form 12BB | Form No. 124 | s.192 | s.392(5)(b) | 205 | 08 |
| Form 12BA | Form No. 123 | s.192 | s.392(5)(a) | 204(2) | 08 |
| All six in the guide | Every one renumbered | 01 |
The annual salary certificate is Form No. 130 now, under section 395(4) and rule 215(1). Section 203 and rule 31 went with the Act they sat in.
Source: Income-tax Rules 2026, Rule 215(1) [Table: Sl. No. 1], as notifiedCapped at the tax deductible. Not an increase: the Income Tax Department puts the old rate at ₹500 a day as well, so it carried across unchanged.
Source: Income-tax Act 2025, Section 465(2)(g), read from the gazetteForm No. 130 is generated out of the quarterly Form No. 138. Until that statement is filed and processed, there is nothing on the portal to download.
Source: Income Tax Department, Published FAQ on Form No. 130, answer 6Section 203 and rule 31 read perfectly well and are no longer the law for any salary paid on or after 1 April 2026. A repealed section number looks exactly like a valid one, which is why this survives in so much of what is written about the form.
It is in Part C (Annexure-I) now. Part B still exists and still matters, but it holds the quarterly reconciliation of tax deducted against tax deposited, with the challan detail underneath it.
Rule 215(1) requires it to be generated and downloaded from the portal the Director General of Income-tax (Systems) specifies, which is TRACES. The Income Tax Department says a certificate prepared through any other mode is not a valid one, however right it looks.
Form No. 138 for January to March is due on 31 May and the certificate is due on 15 June. The statement has to be processed inside those two weeks before anything can be downloaded, so a mismatch found on 31 May is a fortnight from being a missed deadline.
The Income Tax Department's instruction is that systems have to be updated to the new numbering, terminology and reporting requirements. A declaration form still printing 80C for tax year 2026-27 produces a certificate nobody can reconcile.
Each employer issues Part A and Part B for its own period. Part C (Annexure-I) goes out from each of them or from the last employer alone, at the employee's option, so it is worth asking rather than assuming either way.
Correct until 31 March 2026
The 2025 Act and the 2026 Rules
Eleven chapters, every section number mapped old to new, twelve checks. Short form, instant download.
Attendo, formerly Petpooja Payroll, is payroll and attendance software used by more than 40,000 businesses in India, across manufacturing, corporate offices, retail, hospitality and education. It computes salary TDS month by month and keeps the record behind it. See what it does, or browse every free download we publish.
The certificate is built from twelve months of payroll. Attendo keeps that record as it happens.
