Fifteen lakhs is where the income-tax line on the payslip stops being a rounding error and becomes a real number: ₹89,630 for the year, leaving a monthly in-hand of about ₹1,11,327 on this page’s default structure (new regime, Karnataka, metro, 40% basic, PF on the statutory ceiling) for FY 2026-27.
The first CTC on this site that actually pays tax
Follow the money once: ₹15,00,000 of CTC sheds ₹21,600 of employer PF and a ₹28,846 gratuity provision before it becomes a gross salary of ₹14,49,554. The ₹75,000 standard deduction brings taxable income to ₹13,74,554 — ₹1,74,554 beyond the ₹12,00,000 rebate limit, and also beyond the marginal-relief zone that shields incomes just above it. So the slabs apply in full: ₹86,183, plus 4% health-and-education cess, equals ₹89,630. After tax, employee PF, and professional tax, ₹13,35,924 reaches the bank across the year.
Set against the whole package, that tax bill is about 6% of CTC — ₹7,469 a month. The 15% printed on the slab table and the 6% experienced in reality differ because slab rates are marginal: the first ₹4,00,000 of taxable income is charged nothing, the next ₹4,00,000 only 5%, and only the final ₹1,74,554 is priced at 15%.
A threshold below, a threshold above
Looking down: the zero-tax edge sits at ₹13,22,000 of CTC (a ₹12,75,000 gross salary). Someone there takes home ₹1,04,250 a month with no tax at all; the move from ₹13.22 to ₹15 lakh — ₹1.78 lakh of extra CTC — adds about ₹85,000 of annual in-hand, with tax absorbing roughly half the increment. That is the §87A catch-up at work, and 15 LPA sits at the far end of it, where the ratio normalises again.
Looking up: the 20% slab begins at ₹16,00,000 of taxable income, which this structure reaches near a ₹17,30,000 CTC. Until then, each incremental rupee is taxed at 15% plus cess (15.6% all-in). Surcharge is nowhere in sight — it starts at ₹50 lakh of taxable income.
Old regime at 15 LPA: the ₹16,378 gap
This income is high enough that the regime comparison stops being trivial — and the numbers still land one way at the standard deduction set. Maxing §80C (₹1,50,000, which employee PF partly fills) and claiming HRA until the exemption hits its ceiling — it can never exceed the ₹3,00,000 of HRA this structure pays — leaves the old regime at ₹1,06,008 against the new regime’s ₹89,630. The exemption ceiling is the binding constraint: past about ₹30,000 of monthly rent, extra rent stops moving the old-regime number entirely. Deductions outside this calculator’s model (home-loan interest under §24, NPS employer contributions, §80D premiums) are what change the balance for some filers; the old-vs-new tool linked below makes the same comparison with your own inputs.
What ₹1.11 lakh a month means in Pune
Pune prices this salary generously. Baner, Hinjewadi, and Wakad 2BHKs rent for ₹22,000–₹32,000 — a fifth to a quarter of take-home, versus the third that Bengaluru or Gurugram demand — and daily costs track well below the bigger metros. One payslip nuance for Pune offers: Maharashtra’s professional tax collects ₹200 a month but ₹300 in February, totalling ₹2,500 a year against Karnataka’s ₹2,400. The ₹100 is trivia; the different February payslip line surprises people every year.