Why are people so happy about the new tax rates? Don’t they realize they’ve lost benefits like 80C, HRA, and employee reimbursements?

All tax saving avenues are either shit or don't serve everyone's purpose. Most are forced to make suboptimal investments just for tax saving. Old regime has complexity which is PITA for the honest taxpayer (planning and documentation), PITA for the employer (verifying and accounting) and most PITA for the Govt (fake receipts and compliance). Worth paying the extra bucks to be excused of all this. Do you realise, the Govt cannot really audit a salaried individual in NTR coz there's nothing to check? Most salaried folks would love that peace of mind!

Now, Let's come to the investments one by one:

Home Loan int & principal: Need to buy an expensive house, not everyone wants to do it EPFO: Awesome concept, Shit website, automatic redemption is broken, people have immolated (put self on fire) themselves in epfo office to protest. NPS: lockin till 60, forced to go into annuities which have very bad rates ELSS: Acceptable PPF: Acceptable but rates are too low despite zero tax

Rent/HRA: Landlord seldom gives receipts/PAN, exemption vs rent is miniscule LTA: Not used by most. Boarding passes and everything makes it very cumbersome. Employee reimbursements: Too much hassle to submit bills and plan. Pain in the Ass for employers too. Not much reward. Not really savings incentiviser. NTR takes care of it via the increased slabs.

I claim HRA and 80C. My rent is high too so still I'll opting for Old rax regime so the benefits won't help me.

But there are many people who are not claiming HRA or they are paying low rent so this new benefits surely gonna help them.

Also in new IT bill there is no mention of old regime

All i am trying to say is benefit is not 1.1 lakhs which everyone is claiming. Its should be reduced by the benefit which are not available

Those benefits are still there. Many people will still use Old regime only. And those who used to use new regime, for them it is a significant tax benefit change. Specially for those earning below 12.75, it is a huge plus. Earlier the limit was 7.75, and now it got increased to 12.75 lakhs, 5 lakhs worth of increase. So, many more salaried folks will come in the zero tax bracket.

Even for those earning more than that, if they are using new regime, they will benefit 30-120k amount.

But yes, overall, there is nothing to be “so happy” about, and neither do I think that people are. Just that, it is the first time in 11 yrs that Govt did something visibly good for income tax payers, that too when there was so much low expectation from Govt.

That said, people should remember that it came after so many previous yrs’ disastrous changes- Code on Wages Act (increasing taxes), inception of new tax regime, no change in slab for past several yrs (or was it just 1 change?), etc.

So it is like Govt threw people in fire, and then took them out and gave some water to drink, so people seem happy in short term.