What will I actually take home?

What actually comes out of a salary before it reaches you

Three separate things: your own EPF contribution, professional tax if your state charges it, and income tax under whichever regime applies to you. Each is calculated differently, on a different base, and this calculator keeps them visibly separate rather than folding them into one opaque number.

Professional tax specifically is set by each state, and several major states, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab among them, charge none at all. Where it does apply, it is usually small next to income tax, but it is real money, and most take-home calculators either ignore it or guess at a generic figure that is wrong for most readers.

What people get wrong about this

Using gross salary instead of basic for the EPF figure is the most common error. Basic is often only 40 to 50 percent of gross, so this can overstate the EPF deduction by a wide margin and understate take-home to match.

The second is assuming professional tax is the same everywhere, or that every state charges it at all. It is not, and several large states charge nothing, Delhi included.