FY 2025-26 Capital Gains Tax Rates — What Changed and What Stayed
The changes introduced in Union Budget 2024 (effective 23 July 2024) are now fully in force for FY 2025-26. Budget 2025 did not alter these rates.
Short-Term Capital Gains (STCG) on Listed Equity
Shares and equity-oriented mutual fund units held for less than 12 months and sold with STT paid: Tax rate: 20% (increased from 15% before 23 July 2024). Reported under Schedule CG of ITR-2 or ITR-3.
Long-Term Capital Gains (LTCG) on Listed Equity
Shares and equity-oriented mutual fund units held for more than 12 months and sold with STT paid: Tax rate: 12.5% on gains exceeding ₹1.25 lakh per financial year. Exemption raised from ₹1 lakh to ₹1.25 lakh (Budget 2024). Reported in Schedule 112A of ITR-2 or ITR-3 — scrip-level detail required.
F&O and Intraday Equity
- F&O profits: non-speculative business income — slab rate taxation, reported in ITR-3
- Intraday equity profits: speculative business income — slab rate taxation, reported in ITR-3
- Tax audit triggered if F&O turnover exceeds ₹10 crore or profits are below 6% of turnover
The Core Problem: Every Broker Exports Differently
The structural challenge in equity P&L consolidation is format fragmentation. India's retail equity market has 12+ active broker platforms, and every one of them exports trade data in a different structure.
Zerodha (Kite) exports a Tax P&L Excel with columns like Symbol, ISIN, Trade Type, Quantity, Buy Average, Sell Average, Realized P&L, and a separate section for charges.
Groww exports separate files for equity delivery, intraday, and F&O, each with their own column naming — "Stock Name" rather than "Symbol", "Transaction Date" rather than "Trade Date".
Angel One exports a P&L Summary Excel that groups data differently and includes brokerage and charges in separate rows rather than as columns alongside each trade.
When a client has accounts across all three, the CA must download three separate files, map columns from three different schemas into one unified structure, ensure date formats and charge calculations are consistent, then apply the STCG/LTCG/business income classification logic. Multiply this by 40 clients, and the scale of the problem becomes clear.
Holding Period Calculation — The Classification Engine
The STCG vs. LTCG determination is entirely a function of the holding period. For listed equity: holding period = date of sale minus date of purchase (in days). If 365 days or less: STCG at 20%. If more than 365 days: LTCG at 12.5% above ₹1.25L.
This breaks down in practice in several ways:
FIFO assumptions differ. SEBI requires brokers to use FIFO for computing capital gains, but some broker exports show average cost rather than FIFO lot-level data. A consolidated statement that relies on average cost will misclassify long-duration lots.
Transfers between brokers. When a client transfers shares via CDSL/NSDL off-market transfer, the original purchase date carries over — but the new broker's P&L export may show the transfer-in date as the acquisition date, artificially converting LTCG to STCG.
Bonus shares and splits. The cost of acquisition and holding period for bonus shares are governed by specific rules under Section 55(2)(aa). Including them in a naive consolidation will produce wrong capital gains numbers.
Step-by-Step Equity P&L Consolidation Workflow for FY 2025-26
Step 1 — Inventory All Broker Accounts
Confirm with the client every demat and trading account that was active or had holdings during FY 2025-26 (1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026). Cross-reference against the AIS on the Income Tax Portal.
Step 2 — Download P&L Exports for FY 2025-26
Download the tax P&L file from each broker for the full financial year. Prefer trade-level exports over summary exports — they give you the FIFO lot data needed for accurate holding period calculation.
Step 3 — Normalize into a Common Schema
Map each broker's columns to a common structure: trade date, symbol, ISIN, exchange, segment, trade type (BUY/SELL), quantity, price, value, brokerage, STT, other charges, realized P&L.
Step 4 — Classify by Tax Treatment
- LTCG — equity delivery, holding period > 12 months
- STCG — equity delivery, holding period ≤ 12 months
- Speculative business income — intraday equity
- Non-speculative business income — F&O
Step 5 — Compute Tax-Ready Totals
Net STCG for the year, Net LTCG for the year (apply ₹1.25L exemption), Net F&O P&L, and total charges (deductible in the correct heads).
Step 6 — Reconcile Against AIS
Download the AIS from the Income Tax Portal and verify that every high-value sale listed there appears in the consolidated statement. Flag and explain any discrepancy before filing.
Common Errors CAs Make in Equity P&L Consolidation
- Using summary P&L instead of trade-level data. Summary P&L shows only net realized gains. Without individual trade dates, STCG/LTCG classification is not possible.
- Ignoring charges. STT is deductible from capital gains as a cost of sale. Brokerage and transaction charges are deductible for business income (F&O/intraday) but not for capital gains.
- Filing ITR-2 when ITR-3 is required. Any F&O activity — even a single contract — means the client must file ITR-3. Filing the wrong form results in a defective return notice.
- Not carrying forward F&O losses. F&O losses can be carried forward for up to 8 years, but only if ITR-3 is filed on time. Missing the due date forfeits the carry-forward permanently.
Quick Reference: FY 2025-26 Equity Tax Rates
| Asset / Income Type | Holding Period | Tax Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Listed equity, equity MF (STCG) | Up to 12 months | 20% |
| Listed equity, equity MF (LTCG) | More than 12 months | 12.5% on gains above ₹1.25L |
| F&O income | N/A | Slab rate (business income) |
| Intraday equity | N/A | Slab rate (speculative business income) |
How FirstReports Handles Multi-Broker Consolidation
The manual normalization and classification workflow described above is exactly what FirstReports automates. Upload CSV or Excel files from any of the 12 supported brokers — Zerodha, Groww, Angel One, Upstox, 5paisa, ICICI Direct, HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, Dhan, Paytm Money, Motilal Oswal, or Sharekhan — and the platform auto-detects the broker format, normalizes all trades into a common schema, applies STCG/LTCG classification using holding period logic, separates F&O and intraday into the correct income buckets, and generates a consolidated statement per client, per financial year.
The output is a tax-ready consolidated equity P&L statement — exportable as Excel or PDF — covering all segments: EQ, F&O, COM, and CUR. The first client is free — no credit card needed.