Reading Your Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Submitting Feedback on Transactions

Every year between June and July, lakhs of salaried taxpayers open the e-filing portal to file their return and freeze when they see a number in the Annual Information Statement (AIS) that does not match their own records. A fixed deposit closed in 2024 still shows interest, a mutual fund redemption appears twice, or a savings-bank interest figure looks inflated. The instinct is either to panic or to ignore it. Both are wrong. The AIS is not a demand and it is not final: it is a pre-filled draft that the Income Tax Department invites you to correct through a structured feedback mechanism. This Q&A walks through exactly how to read the statement, when to submit feedback, and what happens to your ITR once you do.

The AIS was rolled out from the assessment year 2021-22 onward and now sits alongside (not in place of) Form 26AS. It consolidates the data reporting entities file about you, so understanding it is the single most useful hour a salaried filer can spend before hitting submit.

The Scenario

Consider Ritika, a salaried product manager in Pune with a gross salary of Rs 14,00,000 for FY 2025-26. When she logs in to file her return in July 2026, her AIS under the "Interest" head shows Rs 90,000 of interest income. Ritika knows she earned only about Rs 60,000: her bank has reported one fixed-deposit interest entry of Rs 30,000 twice, because the branch filed a correction statement that the system read as a fresh transaction rather than a replacement.

If Ritika does nothing, one of two bad outcomes follows. Either she copies the AIS figure of Rs 90,000 into her return and over-reports income by Rs 30,000, or she files with her correct figure of Rs 60,000 and leaves a Rs 30,000 gap between her return and the department's information. Under the Computer Assisted Scrutiny Selection (CASS) system, a mismatch of this kind is exactly the sort of flag that can trigger an intimation under Section 143(1) or a query under the e-Verification Scheme 2021. The correct third option is to submit AIS feedback marking the duplicate, so that the department's own aggregated figure moves to Rs 60,000 before she files. That is the mechanism this article explains.

Statutory Answer

The AIS does not float free of law. Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act, 1961, inserted by the Finance Act 2020 with effect from 1 June 2020, empowers the tax authority to upload in the taxpayer's registered account an "annual information statement" containing prescribed information. The mechanics are set out in Rule 114-I of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, which directs the Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems) to upload the statement in Form 26AS and, through the AIS, to include the wider set of financial information the department receives. You can read the section text on the government's own portal at indiacode.nic.in.

Much of the data inside the AIS arrives through the Statement of Financial Transaction (SFT) route. Section 285BA of the Act, read with Rule 114E, obliges banks, mutual funds, registrars, sub-registrars, and other "specified persons" to report high-value transactions such as fixed-deposit interest, dividend, and immovable property purchases. Because SFT filings are made by third parties, they can contain duplicates, wrong-PAN tags, or timing errors, which is precisely why the department built a feedback layer.

The Income Tax Department's official AIS FAQ (incometax.gov.in) sets out the structure and the feedback rights clearly. The statement has two parts, and only Part B carries the transaction data you may need to correct:

Crucially, the department separately publishes the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), a category-wise aggregated figure derived from the AIS. For each information category the TIS shows both the "processed value" (the department's figure after its own de-duplication rules) and the "value accepted by taxpayer" (which updates when you submit feedback). It is the TIS-accepted value that pre-fills your return, so your feedback is not cosmetic: it changes the number the ITR uses.

Worked Resolution

Return to Ritika. Her AIS "Interest" category reads Rs 90,000, made up of a genuine Rs 30,000 FD interest, a genuine Rs 30,000 savings and other interest, and a duplicated Rs 30,000 FD entry. Here is the step-by-step resolution she follows in July 2026.

First, she logs in to the e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in, opens Services then Annual Information Statement, and drills into the Interest category. She clicks the duplicated line and selects the "Optional" feedback button. The AIS feedback menu offers a fixed set of responses; the ones a salaried filer uses most are set out below.

Ritika selects "Information is duplicate / included in other information" for the extra Rs 30,000 line and submits. The portal immediately records the feedback, generates an updated AIS with the modified value shown in brackets against the original, and lets her download an Acknowledgement Receipt. The TIS "value accepted by taxpayer" for the Interest category now reads Rs 60,000 rather than Rs 90,000. She can lodge such corrections one at a time or use the bulk feedback facility if several entries are wrong.

Why the correction is worth the ten minutes: the tax at stake is real. Ritika files under the new regime for FY 2025-26, where the standard deduction is Rs 75,000 and the Section 87A rebate is Rs 60,000 for total income up to Rs 12,00,000. Her numbers sit well above the rebate threshold, so every rupee of interest is taxed at her marginal rate. The table shows the difference between filing on the inflated AIS figure and the corrected one.

The gap is Rs 4,680. That is the marginal 15 per cent slab rate plus 4 per cent cess applied to the phantom Rs 30,000, and it is money Ritika would have handed over for interest she never earned. You can reproduce this arithmetic for your own salary with Oquilia's income tax calculator, compare regimes on the old vs new regime tool, and cross-check any deducted tax against the TDS calculator.

Two cautions matter here. Submitting feedback does not by itself change your tax; it changes the department's information and your pre-fill, and you must still report your genuine income of Rs 60,000 in the return. And feedback is not a licence to erase real income: denying a transaction you actually undertook is a misrepresentation that the department can act on, because the reporting entity's data remains on file regardless of your response.

FAQ

Does submitting AIS feedback change the reporting entity's original data?

No. Your feedback is recorded against the entry and updates the TIS "value accepted by taxpayer", but the original figure filed by the bank or fund under Section 285BA stays visible in the AIS, shown alongside your modified value in brackets. If the reporting entity itself filed wrongly, the department may take the matter up with that entity for confirmation, per the AIS FAQ on incometax.gov.in.

Is there a deadline to submit AIS feedback?

There is no statutory cut-off date tied to the AIS itself, and you can revise feedback even after filing. In practice you should complete it before you file so the corrected TIS pre-fills your ITR. Filing your return on an uncorrected AIS invites a mismatch, and the Section 139(1) due date of 31 July 2026 for non-audit individual taxpayers still governs the return, not the feedback.

What is the difference between the AIS and Form 26AS?

Form 26AS, now generated under Section 285BB read with Rule 114-I, is largely a tax-credit statement showing TDS, TCS, advance tax and self-assessment tax. The AIS is broader: it adds SFT data, interest, dividend, securities transactions, foreign remittances and more. Where the two differ on a TDS figure, the department advises reconciling against the deductor's TDS return before raising feedback.

Can I use the AIS on my phone?

Yes. The department offers the "AIS for Taxpayer" mobile app, through which you can view Part A and Part B and submit the same feedback options available on the web portal. You log in with the PAN registered on the e-filing portal and authenticate through an OTP, as described in the AIS FAQ on incometax.gov.in.

Will correcting my AIS trigger a scrutiny notice?

Submitting genuine feedback does not itself invite scrutiny; it is the mismatch between your return and the department's information that risks an intimation under Section 143(1) or an e-Verification query. Correctly marking a duplicate or wrong-PAN entry reduces that risk. If you do receive a notice, respond through the e-proceedings facility rather than ignoring it.

Does the AIS show my capital gains?

Yes, in part. The AIS reflects securities and mutual-fund transactions reported by depositories and registrars, but it does not compute your gain, because it lacks your full cost and holding-period records. You must calculate the taxable gain yourself; the capital gains calculator applies the 12.5 per cent long-term rate on equity above the Rs 1,25,000 annual exemption set by the Budget 2024 provisions effective 23 July 2024.

What if the AIS misses income I did earn?

The AIS is not exhaustive, and the department's own disclaimer states it should not be treated as the final word on your income. If you earned interest or professional income that no reporting entity filed, you remain legally bound to report it in your return under Section 139. The feedback tool corrects over-reporting; it does not absolve you of income the statement happens to omit.