Professional Tax (PT)

Professional Tax is a state-level tax on salaried individuals, freelancers, and professionals. Rates vary by state — each state government sets its own slabs — but the maximum any state can levy is capped at ₹2,500 per year under Article 276, typically structured as ₹200/month with an extra ₹300 in one month (commonly February) to reach the cap. PT liability follows the employee's work location, not the employer's registered office.

Not every state levies PT — Maharashtra, Karnataka, and West Bengal do, while Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and several others don't. Karnataka raised its exemption threshold to ₹25,000/month from 1 April 2025 — employees earning below that pay no PT at all, so the same salary structure can produce a different take-home figure purely based on which state an employee works in.