India’s old tax regime is essentially a rewards programme for financial good behaviour: save, insure, invest in specified instruments, and the tax code hands you deductions that shrink your taxable income. Sections 80C to 80U house this entire architecture — each section a different incentive, each with its own limit and fine print. With the new regime making most of them optional, knowing exactly what each deduction offers is the difference between an informed regime choice and a guess. Here is every major deduction, in one place.

Section 80C: the 1.5 lakh workhorse

Section 80C is the deduction most Indians actually use: up to 1.5 lakh rupees a year across a crowded basket. Employee provident fund contributions, public provident fund deposits, ELSS mutual fund investments, life insurance premiums, principal repayment on a home loan, children’s tuition fees, national savings certificates, Senior Citizens’ Savings Scheme deposits, Sukanya Samriddhi contributions and tax-saving fixed deposits all compete for the same 1.5 lakh ceiling. The strategic insight is that much of this fills itself — EPF deductions from salary and children’s school fees alone exhaust the limit for many families, making additional 80C investments redundant. An extra 50,000 rupee deduction for NPS contributions sits separately under 80CCD(1B), outside the 80C cap — the one legitimate top-up.

Sections 80D, 80E and 80G: health, education and giving

Section 80D covers health insurance premiums: up to 25,000 rupees for yourself, spouse and children, plus an additional 25,000 for parents — rising to 50,000 for senior-citizen parents, so a family supporting elderly parents can claim up to 75,000 or even 1 lakh in total. Preventive health check-ups up to 5,000 rupees fit within these limits. Section 80E offers unlimited deduction on education loan interest for eight years — no ceiling, which makes it disproportionately valuable for large professional-course loans. Section 80G rewards donations to specified funds and charities, with 100 per cent or 50 per cent deductibility depending on the institution, subject to qualifying limits in some cases.

Sections 80TTA, 80TTB and the smaller savers

Section 80TTA gives every individual and HUF a deduction up to 10,000 rupees on savings-account interest — modest, but it makes the first slice of bank interest tax-free for most people. Senior citizens get the better 80TTB: up to 50,000 rupees on interest from deposits including fixed and recurring deposits. Section 80EEA and its cousins have offered additional home-loan interest deductions for affordable housing within specified windows — check current availability before counting on them. Disability-related deductions under 80DD and 80U, and the royalty and patent deductions under 80QQB and 80RRB, serve narrower but important constituencies.

• 80C: 1.5 lakh across EPF, PPF, ELSS, insurance, home loan principal, tuition fees.
• 80CCD(1B): extra 50,000 for NPS, outside the 80C limit.
• 80D: health insurance — 25,000 self/family + up to 50,000 senior parents.
• 80E: education loan interest — no ceiling, for 8 years.
• 80TTA / 80TTB: 10,000 savings interest (all) / 50,000 deposit interest (seniors).
• 80G: donations to specified institutions, 50% or 100% deductible.

Using the map: old regime versus new

Every deduction in this article exists only in the old regime — the new regime’s bargain is lower rates in exchange for ignoring this entire chapter. The practical exercise is to total your genuine, already-happening deductions: EPF, insurance premiums you would pay anyway, home loan interest, health premiums, savings interest. If that honest total crosses roughly 4 lakhs for a salaried taxpayer, the old regime usually wins; below it, the new regime’s lower slabs and 12-lakh rebate typically prevail. Never manufacture deductions — buying insurance or locking money in ELSS purely for 80C usually costs more than the tax saved.

FAQs

Do these deductions apply in the new tax regime? No — with minor exceptions, Chapter VI-A deductions from 80C to 80U are unavailable under the new regime.

Can both spouses claim 80C separately? Yes — the 1.5 lakh limit is per individual, so a working couple effectively gets 3 lakhs of 80C room.

Is PPF interest also tax-free? Yes — PPF enjoys exempt-exempt-exempt status: deduction on deposit, tax-free growth, tax-free withdrawal, under the old regime.

Sections 80C to 80U are the old regime’s instruction manual for keeping more of your income. Read it once, total your genuine claims honestly, and the annual regime decision becomes arithmetic instead of anxiety.

Compiled by the Khabar 24h Editorial Desk from publicly available sources.