For a salaried person in India, the number that matters most is still the ₹1.5 lakh cap on Section 80C deductions under the old tax regime. Secondary explainers report that the Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect on 1 April 2026 and renumbered that section as Section 123, leaving the cap unchanged. I could not confirm either point against the Act text or an official Income Tax Department notice, so the renumbering should be treated as reported rather than settled. This article is written for readers in India. Its scope is the deductions a salaried employee can claim and the regime choice that comes before them.
The renumbering matters because filing software, employer payroll sheets and product brochures still quote the old section numbers. A reader who searches for 80C and finds only Section 123 needs to know whether the rule changed or only the label. On the evidence available, the sources agree on the cap and disagree on little beyond the numbering.
What the 2026 Act reportedly changed
The ARTH website's explainer states that the Act replaced the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026, with Section 80C becoming Section 123 and Section 80D becoming Section 126. A ClearTax page on Section 123 describes the same successor relationship. Both are secondary explainers. Neither was checked against the statute itself, and neither is an official government publication.
A TaxBuddy page says the Union Budget 2026 did not raise the 80C limit. That is the only source I found for it, so it should be confirmed against the Budget documents before anyone relies on it.
How the Section 80C limit works
Under the old regime, deductions under Section 80C are capped at ₹1.5 lakh per financial year. 1finance.co.in says the cap has not changed since FY 2014-15. The cap applies to the total, not to each instrument. Qandle and ClearTax both illustrate this with a ₹1.6 lakh investment that yields a deduction of ₹1.5 lakh. That is an arithmetic illustration from secondary sources, not a calculation for any individual.
In practice the aggregate rule means that a PPF deposit, an ELSS purchase and a tuition payment all draw on one shared allowance. Adding a new product does not add room under the cap.
Which instruments qualify
Bajaj Finserv lists PPF, EPF, ELSS, tax-saving fixed deposits and ULIPs among qualifying instruments. Its list also includes NPS, which is deducted under a separate sub-section (80CCD) rather than under 80C itself, so the list should not be read as a complete 80C schedule. Qandle adds principal repayment on a home loan and tuition fees. Both are product-led pages. The list is useful for orientation, but eligibility should be checked against the Act or the issuer's terms.
Employee provident fund contributions
Bajaj Finserv says an employee's contribution to a recognised provident fund can qualify under 80C, and that the employer's contribution is not claimed as the employee's own deduction. For many salaried people the provident fund is the largest 80C item already, which makes the payslip the first place to look before choosing any product. The amount is shown there, and it reduces the room left for other instruments.
Old regime or new regime: the decision that comes first
1finance.co.in reports that taxpayers on the new regime cannot claim Section 80C. If that holds, a PPF or ELSS purchase has no 80C effect for someone who files under the new regime, and the regime choice matters more than the product choice. Another source conflicts. One page on the new regime says some Chapter VI-A deductions survive, and that point is unresolved in the material I reviewed. A reader should not assume either account is complete without checking the Act.
1finance.co.in also reports that employer contributions to NPS under Section 80CCD(2) remain available under the new regime. This is a single-source claim. Bandhan Life frames the regime choice as depending on each person's deductions and goals, which is consistent with the practical approach of computing total tax both ways. A Business Standard article on old and new regime choice, whose date of 19 May 2025 appears in its URL and was not confirmed on the page, describes the new-regime slabs. Those slabs predate the 2026 Act and should be checked against current rules.
Lock-in periods and what they do not tell you
The clearest difference between the common options is lock-in length. indiainfoline.com gives ELSS a three-year lock-in and PPF a fifteen-year term. Axis Max Life describes a five-year lock-in for its tax-saver fixed deposit, but I could not open that page, so the figure is unverified. The sources I could retrieve give no lock-in terms for EPF or NPS.
Tax treatment is a different matter. I could not confirm the current PPF interest rate or the ELSS capital gains rate. Sources disagree: one page gives PPF at 7.1%, an older one gives a 7.5 to 9% range, and ELSS long-term gains are given as 12.5% above ₹1.25 lakh in one source and 10% above ₹1 lakh in an older one. Historical ELSS returns are not guaranteed. For current PPF rates, the government's published notification is the reference. For capital gains, the Income Tax Department's rules and the fund's documents govern.
Deductions beyond the ₹1.5 lakh cap
A Tata AIA page reports an additional ₹50,000 deduction for NPS contributions under Section 80CCD(1B). That figure is drawn from the 1961 Act's section, and it is the only retrieved source for it. The page is about five years old, so the figure may have changed. Its reported equivalent under the 2026 Act, Section 124(3), comes from secondary sources only and is unverified. I have not used a combined maximum figure from a vittsphere page, which the research notes describe as unverified and possibly erroneous.
Evidence assessment
The ₹1.5 lakh cap and its aggregate nature appear across several secondary and product-led sites. None is an official source, so the figure is moderately supported rather than established.
The qualifying-instrument list and the employee provident fund point rest on product-led pages, and are moderately supported.
The Section 123 renumbering, the 1 April 2026 effective date, the Budget 2026 position, the new-regime NPS point and the ₹50,000 NPS figure rest on single or secondary sources and are weak.
Unknown: current PPF and ELSS rates and tax treatment, EPF and NPS lock-in periods, which deductions survive under the new regime, and the reader's country of tax residence.
Practical implications
A salaried employee who files under the old regime should plan around the ₹1.5 lakh aggregate cap, using the payslip to see how much of it is already used by provident fund contributions. Anyone close to the regime decision should compute total tax under both regimes using their own salary and deductions, and should not decide on the basis of the 80C label. Lock-in periods should be confirmed with the issuer before buying, since they determine liquidity as well as tax position. Filing decisions that depend on the new numbering, or on the new-regime NPS treatment, should wait for the Act text or an official notice.
Limitations and open questions
The main gap is an official source. The coverage here draws on secondary explainers and product pages, and the official Act text and Income Tax Department notices were not retrieved. Sources disagree on whether some deductions survive under the new regime, and on current PPF and ELSS figures. Checking the Act text against the renumbering, and confirming the Budget 2026 position in the Budget documents, would settle the first two questions. Current government notifications for PPF and official capital gains rules would settle the third.
Editor's take
The evidence supports one planning figure with reasonable confidence: the ₹1.5 lakh aggregate cap under the old regime. It is repeated across secondary sources that agree with each other, which is not the same as being checked against law. The renumbering is more likely than not to be real, given how consistently explainers report it, but it has not been confirmed, and a reader should not change filing habits on the strength of it alone.
The regime decision matters more than the product choice, and it does not depend on the section number. Product comparisons are the weakest part of the material, because most come from sellers and the figures conflict. A reader who wants a reliable answer should work from the payslip and the official rules rather than from a brochure.