Income Tax Returns: How To Cross-check Data In Your Annual Information Statement (AIS) for ITR filing?

With the income tax filing season going full swing, most people are busy gathering the usual documents such as their Form 16, TDS certificates, bank statements. But there is one more thing that deserves a close look before you hit submit: your Annual Information Statement (AIS).

A lot of taxpayers miss this step. Either they have never heard of the AIS, or they assume it is the same as Form 26AS. The AIS is far more detailed, and if there is a mismatch between what is in your ITR and what the income tax department sees in your AIS, you could end up with a notice or a delay in refund.

So, What Is AIS?

AIS is a consolidated statement of your financial transactions such as salary, interest, dividends, capital gains, property sales, even remittances, all of it, as reported to the tax department by banks, employers, mutual funds, and others.

It is basically a behind-the-scenes log of what the government knows about your income and investments. And the officials often know more than what shows up in your pre-filled ITR.

How to Access It

You will find it on the income tax portal:

• Log in

• Go to e-File - Income Tax Returns and View AIS

• Click Proceed, which takes you to the AIS portal

• Pick the financial year

• Download the AIS (detailed) or TIS (summary) version

The PDF will be password-protected. Use your PAN (lowercase) + date of birth in DDMMYYYY format. Example: If your PAN is ABCDE1234F and your DOB is 7 July 1985, the password is abcde1234f07071985.

Why You Must Check It

Says CA Shefali Mundra, Tax Expert at ClearTax, is it important to cross-check the AIS even if one has already verified Form 26AS. “While Form 26AS shows TDS, TCS, and certain high-value transactions, AIS goes far beyond to include bank interest, dividends, mutual fund transactions, stock sales, foreign remittances, and more.”

Mudra notes that discrepancies can exist between AIS and Form 26AS, especially for incomes not captured in the latter. “Therefore, cross-checking AIS ensures complete and accurate income disclosure, minimises mismatch notices, and protects you from tax scrutiny or penalties,” she states.

The AIS includes things your pre-filled ITR may have missed or misreported, such as:

• Interest from old FDs or savings accounts you forgot about

• Dividends that didn’t show up in Form 26AS

• Capital gains that weren’t auto-filled

• Property deals are wrongly reported

• Income that’s not yours but somehow tagged to your PAN

All of these can lead to over-reporting, under-reporting or worse, unnecessary scrutiny.

Mundra says this is a common blind spot, “We often see taxpayers relying completely on the pre-filled data. They don’t check if all interest or capital gains have been included, or if incorrect entries have crept in. Even small errors can lead to trouble later.”

She lists the following common errors taxpayers make when reviewing their AIS:

• Relying solely on pre-filled ITR data without cross-checking AIS entries

• Ignoring small discrepancies in interest or dividend income

• Failing to submit feedback for errors or unrelated transactions in AIS

• Confusing Form 26AS with AIS and thinking one verification suffices

• Overlooking capital gains, mutual fund sales, or foreign income that appear in AIS but may not auto-populate in ITR

How to Cross-Check It? Start with these:

• Match salary data with Form 16

• Reconcile interest income with bank certificates

• Look at capital gains from your mutual fund and demat statements

• Check property sale/purchase info

• If you have made or received any foreign remittances, see if they’ve been recorded properly

You can submit feedback directly through the AIS portal, just click on the transaction, choose the appropriate feedback option i.e., “Information is incorrect”, “Not related to me”, etc.

Once done, submit the feedback. The portal tracks it all under “Activity History”, and you can download the final version with your changes reflected.

The AIS may seem like just another tax document, but it is becoming central to how the tax department assesses your return.