Five heads of income

This one is not written up yet

The definition above is the short version. A full explanation — how it works, a worked example and the exam traps — is still being written. In the meantime the chapter below covers it in context.

Written up from the same chapter

• Clubbing of incomeSections 60 to 64 add someone else's income to yours — the Act's answer to families who move income to a lower-taxed relative while keeping the asset.
• Control and managementThe test that fixes a Hindu Undivided Family's residential status: a HUF is resident in India unless the control and management of its affairs is situated wholly outside India.
• Double Taxation Avoidance AgreementA treaty between two or more countries that prevents the same income being fully taxed twice, either by allocating the taxing right or by the residence country giving credit for tax paid at source.
• Inter-head adjustmentSetting off a loss under one head of income against income under a different head — permitted by section 109 of the Income Tax Act, 2025, but only after intra-head set-off and subject to two bars.
• Intra-head adjustmentSetting off a loss from one source against income from another source under the same head of income — the first step of loss relief, under section 108 of the Income Tax Act, 2025.
• Marginal reliefRelief that caps the tax on income just above the section 87A rebate threshold at the amount by which the income exceeds that threshold — so one extra rupee of income never costs more than a rupee of tax.