What is the AIS, and how will it help?

At present, Form 26AS is detailed by the Tax Department, which is a consolidated annual tax statement that includes information on tax deducted/collected at source, advance tax, and self-assessment that is available on the Income-Tax website against a taxpayer’s Permanent Account Number (PAN).

The Budget for 2020-21 had announced the revised Form 26AS, giving a more comprehensive profile of the taxpayer, going beyond just the details of tax collected and deducted at source.

The revised Annual Information Statement (AIS) includes additional categories of information of interest, dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions, and remittances from abroad, along with information on many other transactions that are at present available with the Income Tax Department.

“There may be other transactions relating to the taxpayer which are not presently displayed in the AIS,” the Tax Department said.

Will Form 26A cease to exist now?

Form 26AS will continue to exist until the new AIS is validated and is completely operational, the Tax Department said.

In May last year, the Department had notified the new annual information statement in Form 26AS, effective June 1, 2020. The revised Form 26AS included all details provided by banks and financial institutions, which were earlier recorded in their Statement of Financial Transactions (SFTs).

What will taxpayers have to do now?

The new AIS can be accessed by clicking on the link “Annual Information Statement (AIS)” under the “Services” tab on the new Income tax e-filing portal (https://www.incometax.gov.in).

If the taxpayer feels that the information is incorrect, relates to another person/year, is a duplicate etc., a facility has been provided to submit feedback online. Feedback can also be furnished by submitting multiple information in bulk. An AIS Utility has also been provided for taxpayers to view AIS and upload feedback in offline manner.

The reported value and value after feedback will be shown separately in the AIS. In case the information is modified/denied, the information source may be contacted for confirmation.

A simplified Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) has also been generated for each taxpayer, which shows aggregated value for the taxpayer for ease of filing returns.

If the taxpayer submits feedback on AIS, the derived information in TIS will be automatically updated in real time, and that information will be used for pre-filing of returns. Pre-filling will be enabled in a phased manner.

Taxpayers have been asked to check all related information, and to report complete and accurate information in their Income Tax Returns.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/income-tax-annual-information-statement-form-26a-7603834/