Section 123, the old Section 80C: how much have you actually used?

No. It is Section 123 from 1 April 2026. The Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the 1961 Act and renumbered the whole statute. Section 80C became Section 123, Section 80D became Section 126, and Section 80E became Section 129.

Nothing of substance changed: the ₹1,50,000 limit, the eligible investments and the old-regime-only restriction are all exactly as they were. If you are reading a form or an article that says 80C, it is describing the same deduction under its former number.

Usually more than you think, and that is the point of this page. The most commonly forgotten items are:

Your EPF contribution. Your own 12% of basic counts. On a ₹50,000 basic that is ₹72,000 a year, nearly half the limit, deducted before you ever considered a tax-saving investment.

Life insurance premiums on policies bought years ago and forgotten. Home loan principal repayment, which is not the interest and is a separate deduction from it. And children’s tuition fees, for up to two children.

Your own EPF contribution, PPF, life insurance premiums, ELSS, National Savings Certificates, five-year tax-saving bank deposits, Sukanya Samriddhi, the principal portion of a home loan repayment, stamp duty and registration paid on a house purchase in that year, and tuition fees for up to two children. The employer’s EPF share does not count, nor does the interest on a home loan, which has its own deduction with its own limit.

The excess is simply not deductible. It is not carried forward and it does not reduce next year’s tax. That does not make it a bad investment, but it does mean the tax reason for making it has stopped applying, and the investment should be judged on its own terms from that point. This is the most common way people commit money to an instrument they would not otherwise have chosen.

A separate deduction of up to ₹50,000 for a contribution to the National Pension System, over and above the ₹1.5 lakh here. It sits under Section 124(3) of the new Act, formerly Section 80CCD(1B), and it is the only straightforward way for a salaried person in the old regime to deduct more than ₹1.5 lakh of their own saving. An employer contribution to NPS is deductible separately again, and unlike these, it survives under the new regime.

The tax treatment is identical across all of them, so the question is entirely about the underlying instrument: how long the money is locked, whether the return is fixed or market-linked, and whether you would hold it if there were no deduction. ELSS has the shortest lock-in at three years and carries equity risk. PPF locks for fifteen years and pays a rate reset quarterly. A tax-saving deposit locks for five and is taxed on its interest. Choosing on the deduction alone is how people end up with an insurance policy they did not want.

At a 30% slab, filling ₹1.5 lakh saves ₹45,000 plus cess in the year you claim it, which is a real and immediate return. The cost is that the money is committed for between three and fifteen years depending on what you chose. For most people the answer is yes and the mistake is in what they pick rather than whether they use it. For anyone in the new regime the question does not arise.

Only if the arithmetic says so, which for most people it does not. The new regime has lower rates and a higher standard deduction; the old one has deductions. The breakeven is a specific number for your income, and the regime comparison computes the deduction level at which the two cost the same. Below that level, filling Section 123 does not make the old regime worth choosing.