Form 26AS vs AIS vs TIS: Three-Way Reconciliation Before Filing Your ITR This Year

Every July, lakhs of salaried taxpayers open the income tax portal, glance at the pre-filled figures and click submit. Then, weeks later, a Section 143(1) intimation lands flagging a mismatch of a few thousand rupees in dividend or interest income. The reason is almost always the same: the return was filed against one statement when the department reads three. Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) each capture a different slice of your financial footprint, and for FY 2025-26 the gap between them is wider than ever because of the volume of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) data now flowing in.

This Tax Q&A walks through a proper three-way reconciliation before you file. We will frame the scenario, set out the statutory backbone under Section 285BB and Section 285BA of the Income-tax Act 1961, then work a numeric example using the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs to show exactly how much a missed AIS entry can cost.

The Scenario

Picture Rohan, a salaried product manager in Pune. His Form 16 shows gross salary of Rs 13,75,000 for FY 2025-26 and TDS of Rs 78,000 already deducted by his employer. He assumes his return is complete. But when he opens his AIS, three lines appear that never touched his Form 16: Rs 22,000 of dividend from listed shares, Rs 18,000 of savings-bank interest and Rs 10,000 of fixed-deposit interest. None of these were part of his salary, yet all three are his taxable income for the year.

This is the central question thousands of filers face every season: when Form 26AS, AIS and TIS show different numbers, which one do I trust, and what happens if I ignore the extra entries? The short answer is that you trust none of them blindly. You reconcile all three against your own bank and broker records, then report the corrected figure in your ITR. The longer answer depends on understanding what each statement is actually built to do, which is where the law comes in.

A quick way to see the layers is to map each statement to its purpose. Form 26AS is your tax-credit ledger. AIS is the full transaction picture. TIS is the summarised, ITR-ready derivative of AIS.

Statutory Answer

Form 26AS as it exists today is not the old 26AS. The Finance Act 2020 omitted the earlier Section 203AA and inserted Section 285BB into the Income-tax Act 1961 with effect from 1 June 2020. Section 285BB, read with Rule 114-I, recast Form 26AS into an Annual Information Statement covering not just TDS and TCS but also a wider set of prescribed transactions. So when you read Form 26AS in 2026, you are reading a statement whose legal authority changed in 2020, not a legacy credit slip.

The richer AIS sits on a different limb of the statute. Reporting entities such as banks, registrars, depositories and companies are obliged to file a Statement of Financial Transactions under Section 285BA, with the reportable categories and thresholds prescribed in Rule 114E. It is this SFT machinery that pushes your dividend, interest and mutual-fund data into the system. The AIS and the companion TIS were rolled out by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 1 November 2021 to surface that data to taxpayers and to power the ITR pre-fill, and a built-in feedback facility lets you mark any entry as correct, duplicate, denied or relating to another PAN.

Rule 114E sets monetary triggers for SFT reporting, so not every small transaction surfaces. A few of the long-standing thresholds illustrate the design, and each is anchored in Section 285BA.

The feedback mechanism matters far beyond cosmetics. Under the AIS framework, an entry you leave un-actioned is presumed correct for the department's purposes, and a denied entry triggers a process where the reporting source is asked to confirm. The official position is that AIS feedback feeds into risk assessment and selection of cases, so submitting accurate online feedback on a wrong entry is part of your audit trail, not an optional nicety. You can read the department's own explanation on the official AIS help page at incometax.gov.in and the underlying provisions on indiacode.nic.in.

Worked Resolution

Return to Rohan. His Form 16 captures salary only; his AIS captures the rest. Reconciliation means combining the two into a single, correct total income, then computing tax under the FY 2025-26 new regime, which is his default unless he opts out.

Step one is to total the income the three statements jointly reveal. Salary is Rs 13,75,000. AIS adds Rs 22,000 dividend, Rs 18,000 savings interest and Rs 10,000 fixed-deposit interest, a combined Rs 50,000 of other income that Form 16 never showed. The fixed-deposit interest of Rs 10,000 should also carry matching TDS in Form 26AS if the bank deducted at 10 per cent, which is the cross-check that ties AIS back to the credit ledger.

Step two is the tax. Applying the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs to Rs 13,50,000: nil up to Rs 4,00,000; 5 per cent on the Rs 4,00,000 to Rs 8,00,000 band is Rs 20,000; 10 per cent on Rs 8,00,000 to Rs 12,00,000 is Rs 40,000; and 15 per cent on the Rs 1,50,000 above Rs 12,00,000 is Rs 22,500. Base tax is Rs 82,500. Because taxable income exceeds Rs 12,00,000, the Section 87A rebate of Rs 60,000 does not apply. Adding 4 per cent health and education cess of Rs 3,300 gives a final liability of Rs 85,800.

Now contrast the return Rohan nearly filed, ignoring AIS and using salary alone. On Rs 13,00,000 taxable income, base tax is Rs 75,000 (Rs 20,000 plus Rs 40,000 plus 15 per cent of Rs 1,00,000, which is Rs 15,000), cess of Rs 3,000 brings it to Rs 78,000, exactly matching his TDS. The reconciliation gap is therefore Rs 85,800 minus Rs 78,000, or Rs 7,800 of tax he genuinely owed and would have under-reported. That Rs 7,800 is precisely the kind of figure a Section 143(1) intimation flags, with interest under Sections 234B and 234C stacked on top. You can verify these slab numbers yourself on our income tax calculator and compare regimes on the old vs new regime calculator.

The reconciliation discipline is simple to state. Pull Form 26AS, AIS and TIS together. Tick off each AIS line against a bank or broker statement. Where AIS is right but Form 16 missed it, add the income to your ITR. Where AIS is wrong, submit feedback and keep the proof. Where TDS appears in AIS but not in Form 26AS, chase the deductor, because you can claim credit only for what Form 26AS shows. Our TDS calculator helps you back-check whether the tax deducted matches the income reported, and the capital gains calculator is useful when AIS surfaces securities or mutual-fund redemptions you forgot.

For deeper background on the terms above, see our glossary entries for Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement and TDS. And if your AIS reveals capital gains or foreign assets, the upgrade rules in our guide on when capital gains force a switch from ITR-1 to ITR-2 become directly relevant.

FAQ

What is the core difference between Form 26AS, AIS and TIS?

Form 26AS, governed by Section 285BB and Rule 114-I since 1 June 2020, is your tax-credit ledger of TDS, TCS, advance tax and refunds. AIS layers on the Statement of Financial Transactions data filed under Section 285BA and Rule 114E, including dividends, interest, mutual-fund redemptions and property deals. TIS is the category-wise summary of AIS, rolled out on 1 November 2021, that feeds your ITR pre-fill.

Which figure prevails if Form 26AS and AIS disagree?

Neither prevails automatically. You reconcile both against your own records and report the correct income in your ITR. Form 26AS is authoritative for tax credit you can claim, while AIS is the wider income picture; an unresolved mismatch is a common trigger for a Section 143(1) adjustment, as Rohan's Rs 7,800 gap above shows.

Does submitting AIS feedback change my tax liability?

No. Feedback only tags an AIS entry as accepted, duplicate, denied or belonging to another PAN for the department's records and risk assessment. Your liability is still computed from what you actually report in the ITR, so after giving feedback you must also correct the figure in the return itself.

Can I rely on TIS pre-fill alone and skip reconciliation?

No. TIS shows derived, category-wise values, not assessed income, and reporting entities sometimes file under the wrong PAN or duplicate an entry. A three-way check against Form 26AS and your bank or broker statements remains essential before you file your FY 2025-26 ITR.

What if income appears in AIS but the matching TDS is missing in Form 26AS?

That usually means the deductor reported the transaction as an SFT but has not yet filed or correctly tagged the TDS return. Ask the deductor to file or revise their statement. Meanwhile, claim credit only for TDS actually reflected in Form 26AS, because the portal allows credit against that ledger alone.

Is reconciliation needed if I have only salary income?

Yes. Even a pure-salary taxpayer typically has savings interest, fixed-deposit interest or dividends that show in AIS but never in Form 16, exactly the Rs 50,000 Rohan nearly missed. Omitting them understates total income and is the single most common cause of a post-filing intimation.

How do I download and open AIS and TIS securely?

Form 26AS sits under the e-File menu on incometax.gov.in, while AIS and TIS are under the dedicated AIS tab and download as PDF or JSON. The PDF is password-protected: enter your PAN in lower case followed immediately by your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format, for example abcde1234f01011990.