Tax Credit Mismatch 26AS vs AIS: How to Reconcile and Get Missing TDS Reflected

The Scenario

You logged in to the income-tax e-filing portal on 8 May 2026 to start your ITR for FY 2025-26 and noticed that Form 26AS shows total TDS of Rs 1,12,400 against your PAN, while the Annual Information Statement (AIS) flags Rs 1,38,900 as tax deducted. The Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) auto-populates the higher figure into the prefilled return. Which number is correct, which one will the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) at Bengaluru honour while issuing your refund, and what do you do about the Rs 26,500 that one statement sees and the other does not?

The mismatch is rarely the taxman's mistake; it is almost always a reporting gap by a deductor, a delay in TDS return filing, or a duplicate Statement of Financial Transaction (SFT) entry uploaded by a bank or registrar. Treat the two statements as two different lenses on your tax year rather than picking one over the other.

Statutory Answer

Form 26AS and AIS are governed by two different limbs of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and Income-tax Rules, 1962. Confusing their legal basis is the first reason taxpayers misread the documents.

Form 26AS was rebuilt with effect from 1 June 2020 by CBDT Notification No. 30/2020 dated 28 May 2020, which inserted Rule 114-I into the Income-tax Rules, 1962 and moved the form out of the older Rule 31AB. Rule 114-I draws its parent authority from Section 285BB, which was introduced into the Income-tax Act, 1961 by the Finance Act, 2020. Form 26AS today is therefore the Annual Information Statement notified under Section 285BB and contains TDS, TCS, advance tax, self-assessment tax, refunds, and select high-value transactions.

AIS, the more granular statement, was rolled out by the Income Tax Department on 1 November 2021. It pulls together over 50 categories of information including savings interest, term deposits, dividends, mutual fund redemptions, securities transactions, foreign remittances, and rent receipts reported through Form 26QC. Its sibling document, the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), aggregates AIS line items and feeds the prefilled ITR.

The statutory rule that ties everything to your refund is Section 199 read with Rule 37BA of the Income-tax Rules, 1962. Section 199(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 provides that TDS deducted and paid to the Central Government shall be treated as tax paid on behalf of the deductee. Rule 37BA(1) clarifies that credit for TDS shall be given to the person to whom the payment has been made on the basis of information furnished by the deductor in the TDS statement (Form 24Q for salary, Form 26Q for non-salary residents, Form 27Q for non-residents). In other words, your TDS credit is built from what your deductor reports, not from what you remember being deducted.

When Form 26AS and AIS disagree, Section 199 still rules: the CPC will allow TDS credit only on the amount that has been deposited and matched against your PAN in the deductor's TDS return processed under Section 200A. The wider AIS feed cannot, by itself, create TDS credit; it can only flag income that you may have under-reported. So the practical hierarchy for refund computation is Form 26AS first, AIS second.

Worked Resolution

Take Priya, a salaried product manager in Bengaluru with a CTC of Rs 24,00,000 for FY 2025-26 who also earns interest from a fixed deposit at HDFC Bank and a dividend from her mutual fund holdings. Her three deductors and the friction points are tabulated below.

Priya's true TDS credit under Section 199 should be Rs 1,96,900 (1,80,000 plus 12,400 plus 4,500). She will lose Rs 12,400 of refund if she files before HDFC Bank pushes the Q4 TDS return, and she will appear to have mis-reported income by Rs 4,500 because of the duplicate dividend in AIS.

Step 1 --- Download both statements on the same day. From the e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in, go to e-File then Income Tax Returns then View Form 26AS to land on the TRACES portal. Generate the AIS PDF separately from Services then Annual Information Statement. The PDF password is your PAN in lower case followed by your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format, exactly as documented at incometax.gov.in.

Step 2 --- Resolve the missing 26AS row. Email HDFC Bank's TDS desk citing the bank's TAN, the FD account number, and the quarterly period. Ask the deductor to file a corrected Form 26Q under Rule 31A(6) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962. The deductor accesses the TRACES portal, downloads the consolidated file, runs the Return Preparation Utility, and submits a correction statement. Once accepted, your 26AS will refresh within 7 working days. The deductor's deadline for Q4 FY 2025-26 Form 26Q is 31 May 2026, so do not file your ITR before that date if you have any FD with a bank that deducts only at quarter-end.

Step 3 --- Submit feedback in AIS for the duplicate dividend. Inside the AIS module, click the row for the Rs 9,000 dividend, choose 'Information is duplicate / included in other information', and reference the genuine Rs 4,500 entry. The feedback is processed by the data source within 30 days and a modified value is reflected in TIS. If accepted, TIS will show Rs 4,500 as the processed value and the prefilled ITR will pull the correct figure. The AIS feedback options, in the order they appear on the portal, are listed below.

Step 4 --- File ITR using the reconciled figures. When you finally file, claim TDS credit only for amounts that show up in 26AS. Use our Income Tax Calculator to recompute the liability after AIS adjustments and our Old vs New Regime calculator to confirm your regime choice; remember that Section 87A rebate is Rs 60,000 in the new regime when total income is up to Rs 12,00,000 for FY 2025-26 under the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 amendment. If you have already filed and the missing TDS lands in 26AS later, you can revise the return under Section 139(5) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 by 31 December 2026 --- see our explainer on Revised ITR Section 139(5) vs Belated Section 139(4) for the procedural nuances.

Step 5 --- Track CPC processing. The CPC issues an intimation under Section 143(1) within 25 to 45 days of filing. If it reduces your refund because of a TDS mismatch, you have 30 days to file a rectification request under Section 154, attaching the corrected 26AS. CPC processing data at incometax.gov.in indicates over 80 per cent of refund-bearing returns are processed within 21 days when 26AS, AIS, and the ITR match end-to-end.

FAQ

Which document should I trust if Form 26AS and AIS show different TDS?

Form 26AS, because under Section 199 read with Rule 37BA your TDS credit is computed from amounts reported by deductors in their quarterly TDS return. AIS can lead or lag 26AS by a few weeks. The CPC matches your ITR claim against 26AS first, and only then uses AIS to flag potential under-reporting. If AIS is higher, get the deductor to update; if 26AS is higher, claim the 26AS amount.

How long does a deductor's correction take to reflect in 26AS?

The TRACES system typically processes a correction statement filed under Rule 31A(6) within 7 working days, and the updated figures appear on Form 26AS within another 24 to 72 hours after that. If the deductor revises a Q4 statement after 31 May 2026, you may need to wait until mid-June 2026 to see the corrected number --- plan your ITR filing accordingly and use Section 139(5) revision if you cannot wait.

Can I claim TDS credit if it is in AIS but not in 26AS?

No, not on initial filing. Section 199(1) ties credit to amounts paid to the Central Government and reflected in the deductor's TDS statement processed under Section 200A. The CPC will disallow any credit not in 26AS and issue a demand under Section 143(1)(a). The correct path is to chase the deductor for a corrected Form 24Q, 26Q, or 27Q and either pause filing or revise after 26AS updates.

What if a transaction in AIS does not belong to me at all?

Use the AIS feedback option 'Information is denied' or 'Information relates to other PAN / year'. The data source --- usually a bank, registrar, or sub-registrar --- has 30 days to either confirm or roll back the entry. Keep your written communication ready in case the Assessing Officer issues a notice under Section 133(6) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 seeking confirmation. The AIS user manual published at incometax.gov.in carries a worked example.

Does my employer file Form 26Q for my salary TDS?

No. Salary TDS under Section 192 is reported in Form 24Q. Form 26Q covers non-salary resident payments (interest, professional fees, rent), Form 27Q covers non-resident payments, and Form 27EQ covers TCS. Your Form 16, issued under Rule 31, is derived from the deductor's four quarterly Form 24Q filings.

How do I avoid mismatches in the first place?

Keep a running TDS tracker. Every time a deductor issues a TDS certificate (Form 16, 16A, 16B, 16C), add the amount, the deductor's TAN, and the period to a spreadsheet. After 31 May 2026 (the last date for filing the Q4 TDS return), reconcile your tracker against 26AS line by line. Use our TDS calculator to estimate quarterly TDS on interest income and our Capital Gains calculator to verify mutual fund and equity transactions in AIS. A 30-minute reconciliation in early June saves a 6-month refund chase from October onwards.

Is the AIS feedback final, or can the CPC override it?

Feedback is provisional. The data source can accept or reject it, and the modified value flows into TIS. The CPC can still raise queries under Section 143(1) if its risk engine detects a mismatch with third-party data. If a notice under Section 143(2) follows, the AIS feedback trail is admissible evidence; preserve PDF copies of every feedback submission for the 7-year retention window under Section 149.