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.
