Short Term Capital Gains Tax is the tax that is payable on the gains generated from the sale of an asset or investment which has held for a time period lesser than the long-term. The time period which gets classified as short-term depends on the class of the asset.

For example, in case of debt mutual funds and jewelry, holding period of less than 3 years is taken as short-term.

However, in case of equity shares, bonds, government securities, UTIs, equity mutual funds, zero coupon bonds, holding period of less than 12 months is taken as short-term.