India: Products, benefits that only women get

Article here. Excerpt:

'Income-tax benefits

Under the current tax regime, women pay less tax than men. For example, for the assessment year (AY) 2012-2013, the tax exemption limit for women is Rs. 1.9 lakh. In other words, no tax is to be paid on Rs. 1.9 lakh of your salary. However, for men this limit is Rs. 1.8 lakh.

So a woman who earns an annual salary of Rs. 10 lakh will need to pay around Rs. 1.18 lakh as income-tax. In comparison, the male counterpart will need to pay Rs. 1.19 lakh tax. This tax liability is assuming that both have availed section 80C and 80CCF deductions of Rs. 1.2 lakh.

Fading advantage: Earlier, the difference was larger, but has narrowed down over the years and works to just around Rs. 1,000 for AY 2012-2013. In AY 2011-2012, the exemption limit for men and women were Rs. 1.6 lakh and Rs. 1.9 lakh, a difference of around Rs. 3,000 in total tax liability. In fact, the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) proposes to completely wipe out the difference. Under the proposed DTC, both men and women will have the same exemption limit of Rs. 2 lakh.'