Professional Tax in Karnataka: Slabs, the February ₹300 Rule and Due Dates

The February change came in through the Karnataka Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Karnataka Act 33 of 2025). Eleven months at ₹200 plus ₹300 in February gives ₹2,500 a year, the maximum the Constitution allows. Payroll software has to be set to deduct the extra ₹100 in February. The Commercial Taxes Department issued an advisory reminding employers of this before February 2026.

The test is the month's salary. An employee earning ₹24,000 most months but ₹30,000 in a month with arrears pays PT for that month.

• Registration certificate (RC): for employers who pay at least one employee ₹25,000 or more a month. You deduct PT from salaries and deposit it.
• Enrolment certificate (EC): for companies, firms, LLPs, professionals and traders who pay PT on their own account. Doctors, chartered accountants, lawyers, consultants and shop owners fall here, as do companies themselves.

Many businesses need both. A private limited company in Bengaluru pays its own ₹2,500 through EC and deposits staff PT through RC. Both are obtained online on the Commercial Taxes Department's profession tax portal.

Late payment draws interest for each month of delay and a penalty. Late or missed returns attract their own penalty. If you only deduct for one or two employees, set a reminder anyway: small monthly amounts pile up with interest quickly.

Take a Bengaluru private limited company with 12 employees. Eight earn ₹25,000 or more a month and four earn less.

• Staff PT, April to January and March: 8 × ₹200 = ₹1,600 deposited by the 20th of each following month.
• Staff PT, February: 8 × ₹300 = ₹2,400, due by 20 March.
• Staff PT for the year: ₹1,600 × 11 + ₹2,400 = ₹20,000, which is ₹2,500 for each of the eight employees.
• The company's own enrolment tax: ₹2,500, due by 30 April.

If one of the four lower-paid employees gets a raise to ₹26,000 from October, start deducting from the October salary. There's no need to recover anything for earlier months. Equally, if someone leaves mid-year, deduct only for the months they were paid.

1. Log in to the Karnataka profession tax portal of the Commercial Taxes Department with your RC or EC number.
2. For an employer: enter the month, the number of employees in each slab and the tax. The portal works out the total.
3. Generate the challan and pay by net banking or the other modes offered.
4. Download the payment receipt and keep it with the salary register for that month.

New employers register on the same portal with PAN, the business address and constitution documents. Our overview of professional tax slabs across states compares Karnataka with other states, and the salary calculator shows how PT affects take-home pay.

• Salaries below ₹25,000 a month are exempt.
• Members of the armed forces, and categories such as certain persons with disabilities and senior citizens, are exempt under the Act's exemption list. Check the current list before you stop deducting.
• PT you pay as a salaried employee is deductible from salary income under the old tax regime, not the new one.
• Staff working remotely from another state: PT normally follows the state where the employee works, so a Pune-based employee of a Bengaluru company falls under Maharashtra. See professional tax in Maharashtra.

Registering, paying monthly and keeping returns in line is routine work, but easy to miss. TaxQue's professional tax filing service handles RC and EC for Karnataka businesses.