Read Your AIS Before You File: What the Annual Information Statement Shows and How to Give Feedback

Every year between June and July, lakhs of salaried taxpayers open their return, copy the salary figure from Form 16, claim a deduction or two and hit submit. Then, weeks later, an intimation lands asking why the interest income on a fixed deposit or a mutual fund redemption never appeared in the return. The department already knew about it, because since the Annual Information Statement (AIS) went live in November 2021 the tax office sees a far wider picture of your financial year than Form 26AS ever showed. Reading your AIS before you file is no longer optional housekeeping; it is the single cheapest insurance against a notice.

This article walks through exactly what the AIS contains, the statute that puts it there, how to reconcile it against a real salary, and how to submit feedback when an entry is wrong. Use our income tax calculator to re-run your liability once the AIS numbers are reconciled, and keep the TDS glossary entry open if the withholding terms are unfamiliar.

The Scenario

Meet Ananya, a salaried professional in Bengaluru with a gross salary of Rs 14,00,000 for FY 2025-26. Her employer has issued Form 16, deducted TDS on salary and reported it correctly. She is ready to file ITR-1 until she opens her AIS and finds three entries she had forgotten about: savings bank interest of Rs 18,500, a bank fixed deposit interest of Rs 42,000 on which Rs 4,200 of TDS was deducted, and a mutual fund redemption that appears twice under the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) head because both the registrar and the depository reported it.

Ananya now has three live questions. First, must she add the Rs 60,500 of interest the AIS shows even though Form 16 said nothing about it? Second, what does she do about the duplicate mutual fund entry, which makes her capital transactions look inflated? Third, if she simply files the Form 16 figure and ignores the AIS, what is the realistic downside? These are not edge cases. The AIS exists precisely to surface third-party-reported income, and a mismatch between it and the filed return is among the most common reasons the Centralised Processing Centre flags a return for review. Reconciling first, and recording feedback where a figure is genuinely wrong, is the disciplined route.

Statutory Answer

The legal engine behind the AIS is Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act, 1961, inserted by the Finance Act, 2020 and effective from 1 June 2020. It requires the prescribed income-tax authority, or a person authorised by it, to upload in the registered account of an assessee an annual information statement in the prescribed form, containing prescribed information. The form and mechanics are set out in Rule 114-I of the Income-tax Rules, 1962. In other words, the AIS is not an informal portal convenience; it is a statutory statement the department is obliged to maintain, which is why its contents carry evidentiary weight.

Per the Income Tax Department's official AIS FAQ, the statement is divided into two parts. Part A holds general information: your PAN, masked Aadhaar number, name, date of birth, and contact and address details. Part B holds the financial detail that actually drives your return: TDS and TCS entries, SFT information, tax payments, demands, refunds, and other information reported to the department. Alongside the AIS sits the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), which presents each information category as a processed value and a derived value, the derived value being the figure used to prefill your ITR.

The table below maps the structure so you know where to look for each item.

A crucial distinction: the AIS is broader than Form 26AS. Form 26AS today is largely a tax-credit statement showing TDS, TCS and advance or self-assessment tax payments, whereas the AIS under Section 285BB additionally pulls in SFT-reported income such as savings interest, dividends, securities transactions and mutual fund activity. Treat the two as complementary, not interchangeable. If you want to understand which return form your reconciled income permits, our explainer on ITR-1 Sahaj eligibility and the Rs 50 lakh cap sets out the disqualifiers most people miss.

Worked Resolution

Return to Ananya. Her starting point is the salary line, and her real taxable income only emerges after she folds in the AIS interest. Here is the reconciliation, computed on the FY 2025-26 new regime with the Rs 75,000 standard deduction.

Because her income exceeds Rs 12,00,000, the Section 87A rebate of Rs 60,000 available in the new regime does not apply to Ananya, so the slabs run in full. Applying the FY 2025-26 new regime slabs (nil up to Rs 4,00,000; 5% on Rs 4,00,000 to Rs 8,00,000; 10% on Rs 8,00,000 to Rs 12,00,000; 15% on Rs 12,00,000 to Rs 16,00,000), her tax works out to Rs 20,000 plus Rs 40,000 plus Rs 27,825 on the slice above Rs 12,00,000, totalling Rs 87,825 before cess. Add the 4% health and education cess of Rs 3,513 and her gross liability is approximately Rs 91,338.

The practical lesson is in the marginal cost of the omission. Had Ananya filed on the Form 16 salary alone, she would have understated income by the Rs 60,500 of interest. That slice sits in her 15% slab, so the missing tax is Rs 9,075 plus 4% cess, about Rs 9,438. A figure that small is exactly what makes the CPC's automated matching worthwhile: the system already holds the Rs 4,200 of FD TDS as a credit in her AIS, so an omission of the underlying Rs 42,000 income is trivially visible. Reconcile it now, and she pays the right tax with no notice. Re-run the comparison yourself in the old vs new regime calculator before locking the regime.

Now the duplicate. The mutual fund redemption appearing twice is a reporting overlap, not extra income. Ananya opens the AIS, selects the duplicate transaction, and submits the feedback option 'Information is duplicate / included in other information'. The portal lets her record this; per the AIS FAQ there is no limit on the number of modifications, and the modified value is displayed alongside the originally reported value, with the TIS derived value updated accordingly. She does the same kind of review on the capital gains side, where holding period governs the rate; our guide on capital gains holding periods in ITR-2 explains when the redemption is long-term versus short-term, and the capital gains calculator sizes the liability.

The feedback options the portal offers map to the common error types, summarised here.

One caveat worth stating plainly: submitting feedback updates your derived value in the TIS, but it does not by itself force the bank, registrar or depository to withdraw the figure. If the error is genuinely at source, ask the reporting entity to file a correction statement so the next AIS cycle is clean. And if a processing error has already crept into an intimation, the route is a rectification request, which we cover in filing a rectification under Section 154.

FAQ

Is AIS the same as Form 26AS?

No. Form 26AS now shows mainly TDS, TCS and tax payments, while the Annual Information Statement is a wider statement under Section 285BB that also captures SFT entries such as interest, dividend, securities and mutual fund transactions, plus any reported demands and refunds. Reconcile both before filing rather than relying on either alone.

What does the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) show?

TIS shows a category-wise processed value and a derived value for each information head, per the Income Tax Department AIS FAQ. The derived value is what flows into your prefilled ITR, so it is the number to watch. When you submit AIS feedback, the derived value in TIS is updated to reflect your modification.

Can I correct a wrong entry in my AIS?

Yes. You can submit feedback on any transaction using options such as 'Information is correct', 'Information is duplicate', 'Information relates to other PAN/year' or 'Income is not taxable'. The AIS FAQ confirms there is no limit on the number of modifications, and the modified value is displayed alongside the reported value.

Will filing AIS feedback stop the source from reporting the figure?

Not directly. Feedback updates your derived value in TIS, but the reporting entity (bank, registrar, depository) may still carry the original figure in its filing. If a genuine error exists at source, ask that entity to file a correction statement so the next AIS cycle reflects the right number.

In which formats can I download my AIS?

The AIS can be downloaded in PDF, JSON and CSV formats from the AIS section of the e-filing portal, as stated in the AIS FAQ. The PDF is password protected; the password is your PAN in lower case followed by your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format.

What happens if I ignore my AIS and the figures do not match my ITR?

A mismatch between AIS-reported income and your filed return is one of the most common triggers for an intimation or an e-verification query. Reconciling the AIS before filing, and recording feedback where an entry is wrong, builds the documentary defence you will want if a question is raised months later.

Does AIS feedback change my tax automatically?

No. Feedback updates the information record and the TIS derived value, but you must still report the correct income in your ITR and pay any balance self-assessment tax. Treat the AIS as a reconciliation tool, not a substitute for computing and paying the right tax. Read the self-assessment tax glossary entry if you need to clear a balance before filing.