Puducherry Professional Tax - half-yearly slab under Act 5 of 2017

Puducherry levies professional tax on a half-yearly slab under Act 5 of 2017. The half-yearly cycle is the point that most often causes trouble, because it differs from the monthly deduction pattern used by most states. Under a half-yearly structure the liability attaches to a period rather than to each month's salary. That changes two things in payroll. The deduction may be taken as a single amount within the half-year rather than spread across six months, and the applicable slab is determined by the salary position for the period rather than re-evaluated monthly. Tamil Nadu and Kerala use the same half-yearly approach, which is worth knowing if you operate across the south: Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are monthly, while Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry are half-yearly. A single southern payroll configuration cannot use one cycle for all of them. Puducherry's geography adds a further complication. The union territory is split across four non-contiguous districts, including Mahe inside Kerala and Yanam inside Andhra Pradesh. An establishment in Mahe follows Puducherry's professional tax under Act 5 of 2017, not Kerala's, even though it sits within Kerala's territory. The same applies to Yanam relative to Andhra Pradesh. Registration and remittance follow the union territory, not the surrounding state. The constitutional ceiling of Rs. 2,500 per person per year under Article 276(2) applies across both half-years combined, not per half-year. Note also that Act 5 of 2017 replaced the earlier Puducherry framework, so any reference material predating 2017 is superseded and should not be used to configure the slab.