AIS was launched in November 2021 on the income tax portal for taxpayers to refer to for getting adequate details for filing their taxes.
The annual information statement (AIS) was launched in November 2021 through the Finance Act 2021. The document was made available on the income tax portal for user reference to allow taxpayers to get details before filing their income tax returns. The income tax department gets the financial transaction information of taxpayers from various entities, such as banks, forex dealer, etc., and shows it in the AIS.
How AIS Is Different From ‘Form 26AS’?
AIS is an extension of Form 26AS. Form 26AS contains information on the tax deducted at source (TDS), tax collected at source (TCS), high-value investments, and details of any property purchase, whereas AIS is comprehensive, and besides containing the aforementioned details, includes information about savings account interest, dividends, the interest of deposits, foreign remittances, purchase and sale transaction details of securities and immovable property, and rent received.
Besides providing additional details over Form 26AS, AIS also has a feature where taxpayers can give feedback upon noticing any discrepancy in the information provided in the AIS document. The given feedback on the values and already available values, are both shown in the AIS. These are shown as modified values and reported values.
The purpose of launching AIS was to bring in more transparency and promote voluntary compliance by taxpayers. Also, this was to offer ‘seamless pre-filling of income tax returns’.
How To View The AIS?
Website: The document is available on the income tax website. One needs to first log in to the website. Next, one needs to go to the e-file/income tax returns/view AIS option, and click on it.
A pop-up will open on clicking the ‘Proceed’ button, and you will be redirected to the AIS homepage’.
There you can click on ‘proceed’ and a new screen will open, showing ‘Instructions’ and ‘AIS’. Here, you click on the AIS option, select the relevant financial year, and download the AIS document.
Once the document is downloaded, you may refer to it to get details of the financial transactions done during the financial year, and accordingly file the income tax return (ITR).
The document is password protected. The password is your PAN number and date of birth in small letters without spaces, starting with the PAN number like aaaaa1111a11229999.
Mobile App: You can alternatively download the ‘AIS for Taxpayer’ mobile app offered by the income tax department from the Google Play app store to get the details for tax filing.
For this, the taxpayer needs to register on the app with the PAN number and set a 4-digit PIN to access the app.
What Information Can You Get In The AIS?
It is divided into two parts: PART A and PART B.
Part A: This shows general information, including PAN number, masked Aadhaar number, name, date of birth, mobile number, email, and address of the taxpayer.
Part B: This includes the ‘Statement of Financial Transaction (SFT)’ and shows the dividend from shares and mutual funds, interest from saving and fixed deposits, and purchase and sale value of securities and immovable properties, etc. The information is given with the SFT code for the type of transaction along with the value of the transactions.
Next is the information about the payment of taxes. This column entails information on the amount of tax paid under different heads, for example, advance tax and self-assessment tax. The detail of the date of the tax deposit, tax challan serial number, challan identification number, etc., is available here.
Under the next column of ‘demand and refund, one can see the details of the demand raised and the amount of the refund initiated during the financial year.
The ‘other information’ section contains information received from other sources, such as interest on refund, outward foreign remittances, purchase of foreign currency, etc.
The AIS is a comprehensive document. It has broadened the coverage by reporting different incomes of taxpayers. However, one should always match the information provided in AIS with the original source, such as interest certificate from the bank for tallying interest income, before filing the income tax return (ITR). If there is a mismatch, always report it in the feedback option of the AIS, as a mismatch may attract notice from the income tax department.