Edited on 28.04.2022
The Income Tax Department has announced the introduction of a new statement called ‘Annual Information Statement (AIS)’ which would provide you with almost all the details about your financial transactions during the year.
Compared to Form 26AS which has been primarily providing information related to taxable income and tax deducted at source (TDS), AIS is a much more detailed one, with many more details included – like interests credited to your Savings Bank Accounts, salary, or business income, purchase and sale of stocks, dividends, insurance, credit cards, purchase of property, Mutual Fund (MF) transactions, foreign remittance during the year, etc. reported to income tax department by various entities. Besides, information received by the tax department from any other country under exchange of information and information relating to the payment of taxes/demand/refund/pending proceedings/completed proceedings, etc.” is also reflected in AIS. Hence, AIS is more useful to taxpayers as it is providing comprehensive information in a single place while preparing the tax return than Form 26AS.
AIS is divided into two parts: Part A and Part B. Part A contains general information such as PAN, masked Aadhaar number, name of taxpayer, date of birth, etc. Part B contains comprehensive information on TDS, TCS, Specified financial transactions, payment of taxes, tax demand and refund, and other information. You may download AIS in PDF, JSON, and CSV formats and cross-check all the financial transactions that are undertaken by you. You can submit online feedback if the information is erroneous or is duplicated. Likewise, if you have forgotten any item even a small amount that is appearing in AIS, you can include all such required information in your IT return. In case there is an error and you have not given feedback requesting the correction, then it is assumed by the tax department that the information reflected in AIS is correct and ask you to explain the mismatch if any between the income tax return filed by you and the information in the AIS.
How to access your AIS?
a) Log in to your Income Tax account at http://incometax.gov.in
b) Go to Services Tab
c) Last option in this tab is the AIS option.
It will open a new tab with below two options:
Left side – Tax Information Summary (TIS)* and Right side – AIS.
PDF will be password protected.[Password is your PAN Number in lower case (small letters) + Date of Birth (DDMMYYYY)]
*[TIS is the summary and AIS is the detailed statement. You can download both. When you submit feedback on AIS, the derived information in TIS will be automatically updated in real time]. The derived information in TIS will be used for pre-filling of Return, according to the press report; however, pre-filling will be enabled in a phased manner it said].
AIS will capture all financial transactions of the previous year (i.e current financial year).
Now you can get both 26AS and also AIS. Both put together, the Income Tax department knows all your financial transactions. As per the IT department press release, in case there is a variation between the TDS/TCS information or the details of tax paid as displayed in Form26AS on the TRACES portal and the TDS/TCS information or the information relating to tax payment as displayed in AIS on Compliance Portal, then you may rely on the information displayed on TRACES portal for the purpose of filing of ITR and for other tax compliance purposes,”.
Originally posted on 13.11.2021
