Your offer says ₹18 lakh. Your account says something else.

Monthly take-home, yearly breakdown, regime comparison.

Which regime wins for your exact deductions, with the crossover point.

What each offer actually pays a month. 22 CTCs from ₹6 lakh to ₹1 crore, each computed and shown line by line.

Where the section you know went. 203 mappings, both directions, each read from a government source.

What your state actually deducts. All 36 states and union territories — 19 with a slab table, 2 that have repealed it outright — each cited to its own statute.

The exempt amount under s.11, shown as the three tests it is the least of.

Post-Labour-Code formulas, with the wage definition spelled out — and the rupee difference from a pre-Code basic.

Where the tax saving stops, which is usually long before the 14% ceiling does.

Four CTC bands under the new regime where a bigger offer means a smaller monthly credit — the exact edges, computed from the same engine the calculator runs.

Three new schemes replaced them in the summer of 2026. Your 12% is untouched — but almost every EPF page in India, including one of the Ministry’s own, now cites an instrument that has been superseded. What changed, what did not, and what to cite instead.

Every other explainer is written for the employer issuing it, and cites sections of an Act repealed on 1 April 2026. This one is written for you: what each part is, how to read it against your payslip, the five things to check, and what the law says when it does not match.

Since December 2025 a private-sector subscriber leaving at the normal time must annuitise a fifth of the balance, not two fifths — while the government sector is unchanged. What moved, what did not, and the government page we found still publishing the superseded figures — quoted verbatim, with the date we read it.

The list stopped being Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai on 1 April 2026. Rule 279 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 added Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru — a change invisible to anyone checking the Act, because the cities have never been in the Act. What the rule says, what it replaced, what it is worth in your city, and the pages we found still publishing the old four.