Corporate Tax in India: Meaning & Tax Rate

Indian taxes are divided into two types: One is Direct Taxes and other is Indirect Taxes. Talking about direct taxes, it is levied on the income that different types of business entities earn in a financial year. There are different types of taxpayers registered with the Income tax department and they pay taxes at different rates. For eg, An individual and a company being a taxpayer are not taxed at the same rate.

Budget 2024 Latest Update

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposes to reduce the corporate tax rate for foreign companies from 40% to 35%.

Therefore, Direct Taxes are again subdivided as:

• Personal Income Tax: The income-tax paid by the individual taxpayers is the personal income tax. Individuals get taxed on the basis of tax slabs at different rates.
• Corporate Tax: The income-tax paid by domestic companies, and foreign companies on their income in India is corporate income-tax (CIT). The CIT is at a specific rate as prescribed by the income tax act subject to the changes in the rates in the union budget every year.

Corporate Tax in India

A corporate is an entity that has a separate and independent legal entity from its shareholders. Domestic as well as foreign companies are liable to pay corporate tax under the Income-tax Act. While a domestic company is taxed on its universal income, a foreign company is only taxed on the income earned within India i.e. is being accrued or received in India.

For the purpose of calculation of taxes under Income tax act, the types of companies can be defined as under:

• Domestic Company: Domestic company is one which is registered under the Companies Act of India and also includes the company registered in the foreign countries having control and management wholly situated in India. A domestic company includes private as well as public companies.
• Foreign Company: Foreign company is one which is not registered under the companies act of India and has control & management located outside India.

What is Meant as Income of a Company?

Before understanding the rate of taxes and how the tax will be calculated on income of the companies, we should learn about the types of income which a company earns. Here it is :

1. Profits earned from the business
2. Capital Gains
3. Income from renting property
4. Income from other sources like dividend, interest etc.

Tax Rates Applicable

Taxes on Income

The following rates are applicable to the domestic companies from AY 2020-21 based on their turnover:

*Plus surcharge in case a company gets taxed under section 115BA. The rate of surcharge is 7% in case the total income is above one crore rupees and up to Rs 10 crore. The surcharge is 12% in case total income is above Rs 10 crore. However, if a company opts for taxation under section 115BAA or section 115BAB, the surcharge is 10% irrespective of the total income.

The following rates are applicable to foreign companies from AY 2025-26 based on their turnover :

In addition to above rates:

Surcharge rate :

Health & education Cess: Further 4% of income tax calculated and applicable surcharge will be added to the amount of total tax liability before this cess.

Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT): Alternatively, all the companies (including foreign companies) are required to pay minimum alternate tax at the rate of 15% on book profits if the tax calculated as per above rates are less than 15% of book profits. This will be applicable if the company does not opt for Section 115BAA or Section 115BAB.

Everything about Filing Income Tax Return

Due date for filing Income tax return

Companies including foreign companies have to file their income tax return on or before 30 October every year. Even if the company came into existence during the same financial year, then too, it has to file the income tax return for that period on or before 31 October. For FY 2019-2020 (AY 2020-21), the due date was extended to 30 November 2020, due to the pandemic.

Tax return forms to be filed by the company

ITR 6 : All the companies except companies claiming deduction under section 11 need to file their return using Form ITR 6.

 ITR 7 : All the companies registered under section 8 of companies act, 2013 are required to file their return using Form ITR 7.

Tax Audit

Income tax act requires a class of companies to get their accounts audited and submit an audit report to the IT department along with the Income tax return. This audit is known as Tax Audit. This tax audit report is also required to be mandatorily submitted by eligible companies by 30 September. However, for FY 2019-20 (AY 2020-21), the due date for submitting the tax audit report was extended to 31 October 2020. Corporate Tax is an ocean full of provisions which all companies need to comply with. Keep reading to know what are those provisions, rules that the companies need to follow.