Reading Your AIS and TIS: Submitting Feedback on TDS, SFT and Other Information

Every March a familiar message lands in millions of inboxes: your Annual Information Statement (AIS) for the year is ready. Open it and you may find a bank interest figure you do not recognise, a dividend you never received, or a share sale attributed to the wrong year. Since the comprehensive AIS was rolled out by the Income Tax Department in November 2021, it has become the richest data trail the department holds on any taxpayer, and it now pre-fills your return. This guide, current for FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27), walks through reading your AIS and TIS and submitting feedback that actually sticks.

The Scenario

Consider Ananya, a salaried professional in Pune with a gross salary of Rs 14,00,000 for FY 2025-26. When she opens her AIS on the income tax portal, the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) shows aggregated interest income of Rs 60,000. She knows the real figure is Rs 45,000: the extra Rs 15,000 sits in a joint fixed deposit where her father is the first holder and reports the income on his own PAN. If Ananya simply accepts the pre-filled Rs 60,000, she pays tax on Rs 15,000 that is not hers; if she omits it silently, the mismatch between her return and the AIS can trigger an automated proposed adjustment under Section 143(1)(a) or a defective-return notice under Section 139(9).

The correct route is neither. The AIS is built precisely so that a taxpayer can contest a line item before filing. As the Income Tax Department's own AIS FAQ puts it, feedback can be submitted on any information displayed under TDS/TCS, Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) or "Other information", and the "modified value of the information will also be visible with the reported value". Ananya's task is to file feedback that reduces the derived interest value from Rs 60,000 to Rs 45,000 before she files her ITR.

Statutory Answer

The AIS is not a courtesy document; it rests on a specific statutory hook. Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act 1961 was inserted by Section 103 of the Finance Act 2020 with effect from 1 June 2020, and it directs the prescribed income-tax authority to "prepare and deliver to the assessee an annual information statement in such form and manner, within such time and along with such information, which is in the possession of an income-tax authority, as may be prescribed" (see the bare Act at incometaxindia.gov.in). It is the provision that converted the old, TDS-heavy Form 26AS into a 360-degree statement.

Much of the raw data flows in through the SFT machinery of Rule 114E of the Income-tax Rules 1962, which has required reporting entities to file Form 61A since 1 December 2004. Banks, registrars, mutual funds and companies report high-value transactions above fixed thresholds, and those entries surface in Part B of your AIS. The AIS itself has a clear two-part architecture, and the TIS sits on top of it as a summary layer.

The distinction between the two TIS figures is the crux. The "processed value" is what the system computes after de-duplication; the "derived value" is what carries into your pre-filled ITR after taking your feedback into account. Change the feedback and you change the derived value; leave it blank and the reported figure flows straight into your return. Because Section 285BB places the statement in your hands before filing, the department treats an uncontested AIS entry as a figure you have effectively accepted.

The feedback screen offers a fixed menu of responses against each line item. The exact labels displayed on the portal are set out below.

Once feedback is submitted, the Income Tax Department confirms that "email and SMS confirmations for submission of feedback will also be sent", and an acknowledgement receipt is available for download. Every response other than "Information is correct" is compiled into the AIS Consolidated Feedback (ACF) file, a single PDF that lets you review all your corrections in one place. The full AIS can be downloaded in PDF, JSON and CSV formats, and the JSON/CSV exports are what tax-preparation software reads to reconcile against your books.

Worked Resolution

Return to Ananya. Her correct income position for FY 2025-26 under the new regime is built from a gross salary of Rs 14,00,000, the enhanced standard deduction of Rs 75,000 available to salaried taxpayers in the new regime, genuine bank interest of Rs 45,000, and dividend income of Rs 22,000. She uses the income tax calculator to model both the corrected and uncorrected positions before touching her return.

Her taxable income after the standard deduction is Rs 14,00,000 minus Rs 75,000, or Rs 13,25,000 from salary, plus Rs 45,000 interest and Rs 22,000 dividend, giving Rs 13,92,000. Applying the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs produces the following.

Because her total income of Rs 13,92,000 exceeds Rs 12,00,000, the Section 87A rebate of up to Rs 60,000 in the new regime does not apply; that rebate is switched off once income crosses the Rs 12 lakh threshold, as covered in our note on the enhanced 87A rebate. Her correct liability is therefore Rs 92,352.

Now the counterfactual. Had Ananya accepted the AIS-reported interest of Rs 60,000 instead of the true Rs 45,000, her taxable income would rise by Rs 15,000 to Rs 14,07,000, all of it in the 15% band. The extra tax is Rs 15,000 at 15%, or Rs 2,250, plus 4% cess of Rs 90, a total of Rs 2,340. Submitting "Information relates to other PAN/Year" against the Rs 15,000 joint-FD entry pulls the derived interest value in the TIS back to Rs 45,000 and saves her exactly Rs 2,340, while leaving a clean audit trail that explains the gap between her return and the third-party report.

Reconciliation discipline matters most where TDS is involved. Salary TDS in Ananya's AIS should tally with her Form 26AS and Form 16, and any interest TDS deducted by the bank must be claimed in full. If the bank has deducted Rs 4,500 as 10% TDS on the Rs 45,000 interest but the AIS shows it against the wrong assessment year, she uses "Information relates to other PAN/Year" so that her TDS credit is neither lost nor double-counted. Where a share or mutual-fund sale is misreported, the same logic applies before she uses the capital gains calculator.

Understanding which transactions even reach the AIS helps you anticipate the entries you will have to verify. The SFT thresholds under Rule 114E, confirmed against the Income-tax Rules, are as follows.

If none of your transactions crossed these limits, the SFT block of your AIS should be light, and any large SFT entry you do not recognise is a strong candidate for "Information is denied" feedback. To confirm whether the old or new regime suits your corrected income, the old vs new regime comparison lets you test both before you file.

FAQ

Is AIS feedback the same as revising my return?

No. Feedback under Section 285BB corrects the department's information database and the pre-filled figures in your ITR; it is submitted before or independently of filing. Revising a return is a separate action under Section 139(5). Submitting AIS feedback on 20 July 2026 does not by itself change a return you filed on 15 July 2026; you would still file a revised return if the number on the filed ITR is wrong.

Will submitting feedback stop the department from raising a query?

Feedback creates an on-record explanation, but it is not a guarantee. If you mark a Rs 15,000 entry as belonging to another PAN, the department may still verify it against the counterparty's filing. The value of feedback is that any subsequent mismatch under Section 143(1)(a) is met with a documented position rather than silence, which is far stronger when you respond within the 30-day window for a proposed adjustment.

What if the AIS figure is right but I forgot to include it?

Then the correct feedback is "Information is correct", and you must include the income in your return. Omitting an AIS-reported figure while marking it correct, or leaving it uncontested, is the most common trigger for an intimation. The Rs 45,000 interest and Rs 22,000 dividend in the worked example must appear in the return even though tax was largely deducted at source.

How many times can I revise my AIS feedback?

There is no fixed cap; you can modify feedback as often as needed, and each submission generates a fresh email and SMS confirmation and updates the activity history. The AIS Consolidated Feedback PDF always reflects your latest position, so download it after your final change and keep it with your return papers.

Does AIS feedback affect my tax refund timing?

Indirectly. A clean AIS-to-ITR match means fewer manual checks and a faster processing cycle, which supports a timely tax refund. A large unexplained mismatch can route your return to scrutiny and delay the refund well beyond the usual processing window after e-verification.

The AIS shows a transaction from a bank I closed years ago. What now?

Use "Information is denied" if you never made the transaction, or "Information relates to other PAN/Year" if it belongs to an earlier year. Because the Rule 114E thresholds mean only high-value items appear, a spurious large entry is worth contesting promptly rather than absorbing into your income.

Can I rely on the pre-filled ITR without checking the AIS?

Not safely. The pre-fill draws on the TIS derived values, which depend on feedback you may not have given. Reconcile the AIS against your bank statements, Form 16 and Form 26AS, and submit feedback on any mismatch before you accept the pre-filled figures.