The government would come up with a Direct Tax Code draft for simplification of tax regime next month, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

"I promised (to come out with direct tax code) within 45 days ... I would like to adhere to the deadline and preferably prepone it a little bit, so that informed discussion takes place," he said, while replying to a query on the Finance Bill in the Upper House.

While presenting the budget for 2009-10 on July 6, Mukherjee had said his ministry would release the Tax Code within 45 days (by August 20).

"It is necessary that we must have simplified tax laws", the minister said, adding he would take inputs from all the stake holders to make tax laws user-friendly.

The code will replace the existing Income Tax Act, 1961, besides subsume the other direct tax legislations.

The decision to scrap the existing direct tax laws, he said, was taken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram had done lot of work on the proposed code.