AIS vs Form 26AS: Why Your Tax Statements Look Different Since AY 2023-24 and How to Give Feedback

The Scenario

You log in to the e-filing portal in July 2026 to file your return for AY 2026-27, download Form 26AS out of habit, and find it far shorter than last time. It now lists only the tax deducted and collected at source against your PAN. Then you open the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and it runs to several pages: salary, savings-bank interest, two fixed-deposit interest entries, a dividend line, a mutual-fund purchase, and a credit-card spend flag. One of the fixed-deposit lines looks wrong. Your bank reported interest of Rs 60,000, but AIS shows the same deposit twice and totals Rs 1,20,000. If you file on that figure, you pay tax on income you never earned.

This is the single most common post-2023 filing confusion, and it has a precise cause. From AY 2023-24 onwards, the Income Tax Department deliberately narrowed Form 26AS on the TRACES portal to TDS and TCS data only, and moved the wider transaction picture into AIS, which added an online feedback facility so you can flag exactly the kind of duplicate above (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in). Understanding which statement governs what, and how to correct the one that is wrong, is the difference between a clean refund in six weeks and a Section 143(1) adjustment notice.

Statutory Answer

The AIS is not an informal convenience; it rests on a specific charging-adjacent provision. Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act 1961, inserted by the Finance Act 2020 with effect from 1 June 2020, empowers the prescribed income-tax authority to upload into the taxpayer's registered account an annual information statement containing information in the possession of the department, in the form and manner prescribed (indiacode.nic.in, Income-tax Act 1961). This is the statutory spine of AIS.

Form 26AS has its own, separate legal history. The old Section 203AA, which required the furnishing of the annual tax statement in the earlier Form 26AS, was omitted by the Finance Act 2020 with effect from 1 June 2020. The present Form 26AS was then prescribed under Rule 114-I of the Income-tax Rules 1962, inserted by the Income-tax (11th Amendment) Rules 2020 and effective 1 June 2020. For a plain-language primer on these two documents, see the Oquilia glossary entries for Form 26AS and the AIS.

The practical division of labour settled from AY 2023-24. Form 26AS became the authoritative record of your tax deducted at source and tax collected at source. AIS became the superset: it carries the same TDS and TCS feed, plus Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) data and an "Other information" bucket covering items such as interest, dividend, securities and property transactions. Critically, only AIS carries the feedback button; Form 26AS cannot be edited by the taxpayer (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in).

A third document sits above AIS and is the one that actually feeds your return. The Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) aggregates every AIS line by category, for example Salary, Interest and Dividend, and shows two figures per category: the value processed by the system and the value accepted after your feedback or the source's confirmation. It is the TIS accepted value, not the raw AIS line, that prefills the relevant ITR field. So feedback entered on an AIS item flows up into TIS, and TIS flows into the return.

The three statements compared, as they stand for AY 2026-27:

Worked Resolution

Take Priya, a salaried professional filing ITR-1 for AY 2026-27 under the new tax regime. Her correct income for FY 2025-26 is a gross salary of Rs 14,00,000, savings-bank and fixed-deposit interest of Rs 60,000, and a dividend of Rs 15,000. After the new-regime standard deduction of Rs 75,000, her salary income is Rs 13,25,000 and her income from other sources is Rs 75,000, giving a total income of Rs 14,00,000.

Her AIS, however, shows the same fixed deposit's interest reported twice by the bank, so the Interest category reads Rs 1,20,000 instead of Rs 60,000. The TIS has aggregated that error, and the prefill would carry Rs 60,000 of phantom interest straight into her return. The table below shows what that single duplicate costs if she files without correcting it. You can reproduce both columns in the Oquilia income tax calculator.

The arithmetic of the new regime for FY 2025-26 explains the gap. Income between Rs 4,00,000 and Rs 8,00,000 is taxed at 5% (Rs 20,000), between Rs 8,00,000 and Rs 12,00,000 at 10% (Rs 40,000), and between Rs 12,00,000 and Rs 16,00,000 at 15%. The phantom Rs 60,000 falls entirely inside that 15% band, so it adds Rs 9,000 of base tax plus 4% cess, a total of Rs 9,360 that Priya would overpay. Because her total income exceeds Rs 12,00,000, the Section 87A rebate (Rs 60,000 in the new regime for income up to Rs 12,00,000 in FY 2025-26) does not apply to either column.

Correcting it takes minutes and no paperwork. In AIS, Priya opens the duplicated interest line under "Other information", clicks the feedback button, and selects the option "Information is duplicate / included in other information" (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in). The portal then displays the reported value of Rs 1,20,000 alongside her modified value, and sends an email and SMS confirmation of the submission. Here is the sequence:

1. Log in at incometax.gov.in and open Services > Annual Information Statement (AIS).
2. Switch from TIS to the AIS tab and locate the Interest line showing Rs 1,20,000.
3. Click the optional feedback button in that row.
4. Choose "Information is duplicate / included in other information" and submit.
5. Download the Acknowledgement Receipt; note the email and SMS confirmation.
6. Allow the TIS derived value to refresh to Rs 60,000 before pulling a fresh prefill.

Once TIS reflects Rs 60,000, the prefilled return shows the correct total income of Rs 14,00,000 and tax of Rs 93,600. If she had already paid more through TDS, the excess becomes a tax refund. To sanity-check the TDS the bank should have deducted on that interest, use the TDS calculator, and to confirm the new regime is still cheaper for her than the old one after the correction, run the old vs new regime comparison.

A closing caution: the feedback facility lets you flag what AIS got wrong, but it does not let you under-report. If the bank genuinely paid Rs 1,20,000 and AIS is right, filing Rs 60,000 invites a Section 143(1) intimation proposing to add back the difference. The feedback button is for correcting the department's data, not for editing your own liability down.

FAQ

Does a mismatch between AIS and Form 26AS mean I will get a notice?

Not automatically. Since AY 2023-24 the two are designed to differ, because Form 26AS now carries only TDS and TCS while AIS carries SFT and Other information too (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in). A notice risk arises only when the income you report is lower than what TIS has accepted; a Section 143(1) adjustment can then propose to add the gap. Reconcile both before filing for the relevant assessment year.

If I submit AIS feedback, does the original reported value disappear?

No. After you submit feedback, the portal keeps showing the value reported by the source next to your modified value, so both are visible on the same line. An email and SMS confirmation is sent on successful submission, and the Activity History tab records it with a downloadable Acknowledgement Receipt (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in).

Which figure actually prefills my return, AIS or TIS?

The TIS accepted value. TIS aggregates each AIS line by category and shows both the processed value and the value accepted after feedback; it is the accepted figure that flows into the ITR prefill. That is why giving feedback on an AIS item matters: unless TIS refreshes, your prefill keeps the pre-feedback number, as the worked example above showed with Rs 1,20,000 versus Rs 60,000.

Can I still rely on Form 26AS for anything after AY 2023-24?

Yes, for tax credit. Form 26AS remains the authoritative record of TDS and TCS deposited against your PAN under Rule 114-I of the Income-tax Rules 1962, and your claim of credit in the return is matched against it. Use it specifically to confirm that every deductor's TDS, for FY 2025-26, actually reached your PAN before you file.

What if the AIS information belongs to a different PAN or year?

AIS provides dedicated feedback options for exactly this. You can mark an item as relating to another PAN or another year, which prevents it being aggregated into your TIS for AY 2026-27. As with any feedback, the reported and modified values both remain on record and an email and SMS confirmation is issued (Income Tax Department, AIS FAQ, incometax.gov.in).

How soon should I check AIS before filing?

Check it at least once when you start preparing the return and again just before you submit, because sources can file or revise SFT data through the year. For AY 2026-27 covering FY 2025-26, a July 2026 review followed by a pre-submission refresh catches late corrections. Re-pull the prefill after any feedback so the Rs figure in your ITR matches the refreshed TIS.

Does correcting AIS change the tax regime I should choose?

No; AIS feedback only fixes the income figures, not the regime. Once your corrected total income is settled, the choice between regimes turns on your deductions. After fixing a duplicate like Priya's Rs 60,000, re-run the old vs new regime comparison and the income tax calculator on the corrected Rs 14,00,000 before locking your selection.