Mukherjee hoped to place the bill on the new code in parliament during the winter session and expressed optimism that it will become law by 2011, coinciding with the 50th year of the existing Income Tax Act.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who had initiated the Direct Tax Code in 2005 as finance minister in the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, said the changes were necessary in view of the previous code outliving its utility.

'In these 48 years, not only India has changed, the world has changed. Therefore, it is widely accepted that the present code is outdated,' Chidambaram said, adding: 'It became a happy hunting ground for lawyers.'

He said it was not a mere amendment of the Income Tax Act of 1961 but a brand new code that has been written from scratch.

'This will be a transformational law.'

People should not get perturbed by the large number of pages in the new draft, which runs into 256 pages, Chidambaram said, explaining that the direct tax code of the US ran into 2,000 pages.