The Income Tax Department earlier this month, made available a new statement for taxpayers, which contains more information regarding financial transactions of taxpayers and can significantly ease the income tax return (ITR) filing process for them.

The new statement known as Annual Information Statement (AIS) is a comprehensive statement and provides additional information linked to interest, dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions, foreign remittance information and other such transactions so that the taxpayer does not miss out on reporting any such transaction in his/her ITR.

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 of TDS, TCS, Specified financial transactions, payment of taxes, tax demand and refund and other information. AIS can be downloaded in three formats such as PDF, JSON, CSV

The new AIS provides a simplified taxpayer information summary (TIS), showing the aggregated value to help the taxpayer in filing the income tax return (ITR). “TIS shows the processed value (i.e. the value generated after deduplication of information based on pre-defined rules) and derived value (i.e. the value derived after considering the taxpayer feedback and processed value). If the taxpayer submits 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 (pre-filling will be enabled in a phased manner),” The I-T department mentioned in a release.

If the taxpayer finds any discrepancy in the information captured in the AIS, he/she can submit online feedback. In addition to online feedback, the taxpayers can also use the AIS utility to submit feedback online. If the user submits feedback, the derived information in the TIS will be automatically updated on a real-time basis, I-T department said.

If you have already filed your ITR then you can file a revised return if you have missed out on reporting any financial transaction. Here is how to access the AIS and TIS from the e-filing website

How to download the Annual Information Statement (AIS)

• Log into the e-filing portal (https://eportal.incometax.gov.in/iec/foservices/#/login) using your PAN or Aadhaar and your password.
• Go to the ‘Services’ section at the top menu and click on ‘Annual Information Statement (AIS)’.
• Now, click on ‘Proceed’.
• Then, click on the download button in the AIS tab.
• Select either the PDF or the JSON option and click on ‘Download’.
• Click on the PDF and enter password to open the document
• The password will be your PAN and your date of birth. For example, if your PAN is ABCDE1234F and your DoB id 01/01/1978 then the password to open the document will be ABCDE1234F01011978.

Once you have entered your password, you can view all the details in your AIS. If you find any discrepancy in the AIS or the TIS then you can submit online feedback and the same will be updated.