Intraday Trading Tax Calculator —
Speculative Income, AY 2026-27

Yes. Intraday equity trading — buying and selling the same scrip on the same day without taking delivery — is speculative business income under the main limb of Section 43(5) of the Income Tax Act, because the contract is settled otherwise than by actual delivery.

This is not a choice or a classification you elect; it follows from how the trade settles. It matters because speculative income sits in its own silo for loss purposes, and because it must be reported separately from your other business income in ITR-3.

At your normal slab rates, as business income — there is no special rate. Intraday profit is added to your total income and taxed under whichever regime you are in (the new regime under Section 115BAC is the default for AY 2026-27), plus surcharge once total income passes ₹50 lakh (10%, then 15% above ₹1 crore, 25% above ₹2 crore, and 37% under the old regime above ₹5 crore, each with marginal relief), plus 4% health and education cess on the tax and surcharge.

It is a common and expensive mistake to assume the 20% short-term capital gains rate applies: Section 111A covers DELIVERY-based equity sold within 12 months, not intraday. Because intraday is business income you can deduct genuine trading expenses — brokerage, STT, exchange and SEBI charges, GST on brokerage, internet, advisory fees and a reasonable share of depreciation.

No. Section 73(1) restricts a speculative loss to being set off only against the profits of another speculative business. It cannot be set off against salary, house-property income, interest, capital gains, or even against your F&O profits — F&O is non-speculative under the proviso to Section 43(5)(d), which puts it in a different silo.

This is the single most consequential difference between intraday and F&O, and it is why a trader who does both must keep the two P&Ls separate rather than reporting one net trading figure.

Four assessment years, under Section 73(2), and only against future speculative income. That is half the eight years an F&O (non-speculative) loss gets under Section 72.

Carry-forward is also conditional on filing your return by the due date under Section 139(1) — for AY 2026-27 that is 31 August 2026 for non-audit ITR-3 filers, or 31 October 2026 where a Section 44AB audit applies. File late and the loss is simply lost; a belated return under Section 139(4) preserves nothing on this front.

The absolute sum of your favourable and unfavourable differences — every trade's profit and every trade's loss added together as positive numbers, without netting. If you made ₹6 lakh on winning trades and lost ₹4 lakh on losing ones, turnover is ₹10 lakh, not the ₹2 lakh net.

This follows the ICAI Guidance Note on Tax Audit and is the same basis used for F&O. Because intraday settles electronically, cash receipts and payments are under 5%, so the higher ₹10 crore Section 44AB threshold applies rather than ₹1 crore.

Separately, books of account become compulsory under Section 44AA once turnover exceeds ₹25 lakh.

Yes, if your total tax for the year comes to ₹10,000 or more — intraday profit is business income, not capital gains, so there is no waiting until you file. Under Section 208 the liability arises once that threshold is crossed, and Section 211 sets four CUMULATIVE instalments: 15% by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December and 100% by 15 March.

Note these are running totals, not four separate quarter payments. Miss one and Section 234C charges 1% a month on the shortfall, though a proviso gives a safe harbour — no 234C interest at the June or September dates if you have paid at least 12% or 36% respectively by then.

The practical difficulty for a trader is that intraday income is unpredictable, so the instalments are an estimate you revise each quarter; overpaying is refundable, and underpaying is cheap at 1% a month but not free. One thing worth getting right: the advance tax you are paying now is for FY 2026-27 (assessment year 2027-28) — the year you are trading — not the year you are currently filing a return for.

Usually not, and the reason is the test rather than the timing. Section 43(5) makes a transaction speculative when the contract is settled otherwise than by actual delivery.

In a BTST trade (buy today, sell tomorrow) you sell before the shares are credited to your demat account, but the exchange settles both legs by delivery, so the common professional treatment is NON-speculative — short-term capital gains for an investor, or non-speculative business income for someone trading as a business. Be aware the position is not entirely free from doubt and some advisers take the opposite view, so if BTST is a material part of your activity it is worth a specific opinion rather than a rule of thumb.

The distinction matters a great deal: non-speculative losses set off far more widely and carry forward for eight years under Section 72, against four for speculative losses under Section 73(2).

ITR-3. Speculative business income has a dedicated schedule and there is nowhere to report it in ITR-1 or ITR-2; filing those risks a defective-return notice under Section 139(9).

ITR-4 (Sugam) is only for presumptive taxation under Section 44AD, and speculative business is expressly excluded from 44AD — so an intraday trader cannot use the presumptive route for the intraday leg, even though an F&O trader can for theirs. If you trade both intraday and F&O, ITR-3 carries both, reported in separate schedules.