Annual Information Statement (AIS) | Features and How to Check AIS ?

What is Annual Information Statement (AIS)?

AIS stands for Annual Information Statement newly introduced by Income Tax, which empowers the department to provide an Annual Information Statement to the assesses, such that AIS will contain a wide summary of several financial transactions incurred by the assesses during any assessment year. The basic aim of the introduction of AIS is to widen the information of financial transactions for the assesses, which would facilitate filing his/her return of income and compute his liability of tax which is to be paid by him/her for such financial transaction. AIS will also help the department re-check the return of income filed by the assesses at the end of the respective assessment year, as it will provide all the details of transactions incurred by the assesses under one statement. AIS shows a basic summary of all the basic financial information available with the income tax department traced against your PAN. AIS is powered by the compliance portal of the Income Tax Department.

Features of Annual Information Statement (AIS)

1. Components of AIS: AIS comprises of two parts Part A contains your General Information like PAN number, Aadhar number, Date of Birth, mobile number, email address, and residential address. Whereas, Part B contains important financial information like TDS\TCS information, SFT(Statement of financial transactions) information, Payment of taxes, Demand and Refunds (if any), and other information.

2. Taxpayer Information System (TIS): AIS contains a Taxpayer Information Statement (TIS), which shows financial information for the relevant assessment year, like Salary Received, Interest received, purchase of securities, and units of mutual fund, which are incurred against your PAN.

3. Past Records: AIS is also available for previous years as well. You can change the FY in the year option and you can view the AIS for previous years and search for the information available with the department against your PAN.

4. Downloading option: The AIS portal enables you to download the AIS in PDF format. Also, the information heads can be downloaded in Excel sheets, which help the user to filter out and better process the data for filing of his return of income.

5. Feedback: AIS allows the assesses to file for feedback against any information or transaction shown under his/her AIS, this helps grievance redressal, and the assesses can file his concern under feedback. Even a Bulk feedback option is available in AIS, which encourages the assesses to share their views and feedback on the information provided against their PAN.

How to check your Annual Information Statement?

Now we are addressing the elephant in the room, How can we check our Annual Information Statement (AIS) for any assessment year? Here, the basic pre-requisite is that you should have registered your PAN on the Income Tax portal (which requires basic details relating to you). Here are some series of steps that you can follow to check your Annual Information Statement (AIS) -:

1. Login to the e-filling portal with your credentials at www.incometax.gov.in (Credentials required here are PAN as User ID and your Password)

2. Now you will see the e-filling Dashboard, here you will find the AIS option.

3. After clicking on AIS, the portal will ask you to re-direct to the AIS homepage on Compliance Portal and click proceed.

4. Now, here on the AIS homepage, you will see Instructions for functionalities related to the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Annual Information Statement (The user is advised to go through the AIS instructions).

5. By clicking on AIS, you will find both the Annual Information Statement and Taxpayer Information Statement(TIS) along with your basic details like Name, PAN, AADHAR number, Date of Birth, etc.

6. Now, you will have to select the required financial year for which you require your AIS/TIS, and now you can browse your AIS/TIS easily and download the same as per your requirement.

What is an AIS PDF Password?

The income Tax department has taken care of user data protection and all the files of AIS/TIS are secured with a password, so this gives access to these statements only when you enter the correct combination of Passwords for these files. The password for the income tax statements is a combination of your PAN (in lowercases) and Date of Birth (DDMMYYYY) in case you are an individual, and in case of a company/firm, date of incorporation (DDMMYYYY) is to be entered. For example: In case your PAN is AZAPJ2169B and your DOB is 10/12/1986, then your password to view AIS/TIS will be azapj2196b10121986.

How to open AIS PDF?

AIS can be downloaded in PDF, JSON, or CSV format. To open an AIS PDF, the following steps can be followed:

1. After selecting the relevant financial year for which AIS is required, click download.

2. Now a download popup will appear on your screen asking in which format the would user like to download the AIS, you can select the first option ‘Annual Information Statement (AIS) – PDF’, and click on the download tab in front of it.

3. The File will start downloading and will be saved on your local storage in PDF format.

4. You can click on the downloaded PDF file, and a pop-up ‘Password Required’ will appear on the screen. You can Enter the password combination as explained earlier. For example, In case your PAN is AZAPJ2169B and your DOB is 10/12/1986, then your password to view AIS/TIS will be azapj2196b10121986.

5. After entering the correct password combination you will be able to view and open your AIS PDF.

What are the different types of information shown in AIS?

AIS is like a wider version of form 26AS, AIS shows information that can be vital for filing of return of income AIS layout all the important information about your financial activities. AIS comprises Two parts which are:

Part A contains your General Information like PAN number, Aadhar number, Date of Birth, mobile number, email address, and residential address.

Part B contains important financial information like:

1. TDS/TCS information: Any TDS/TCS information traced against your PAN is shown here. The information will be shown here with other supporting information like Name of deductor, PAN of deductor, Actual amount on which TDS has been deducted, Amount of TDS deducted, Section under which TDS is deducted, etc.

2. SFT(Statement of Financial Transactions) Information: All security transactions are reported here, along with the SFT code, Information Source, Amount, and Information Description, etc. Interest from the savings account is also shown here.

3. Payment of Taxes: Any tax liability paid during any FY is reported here, like advance tax, or self-assessment tax. Along with information like BSR code, amount, CIN, CSN, Major head, Minor head, etc.

4. Demand and Refunds: Any Refund or demand that has been carried out by the Income Tax Department is reported here.

5. Other information: Any information Relating to Other sources, GST turnover, Any foreign remittance, Interest on refunds, etc. are shown here.

How to submit feedback in AIS?

The Income Tax Department has provided a facility where the users of AIS can provide their feedback and concerns on the transactions reported in AIS. If the user thinks that the transaction reported under AIS is not correct they can rectify the same by providing feedback on the compliance portal of Income Tax. Users can submit their feedback, either online or through the offline utility provided by Income Tax. Some steps which are required to be followed to give feedback are as follows:

1. First of all, login into the portal and visit the AIS page on the compliance portal (as explained above), then select the relevant financial year.

2. Now, you can view all different information sources like TDS\TCS information, SFT (Statement of financial transactions) information, Payment of taxes, Demand and Refunds (if any), and other information.

3. Select the information source where you want to share your feedback. Click on wider view on the information source, and now you will find the ‘optional’ tab in front of the transaction reported. Click the ‘optional’ tab to provide feedback.

4. Now, you will see that a pop-up will appear asking you to select the feedback type. Users can select from the following feedback types: Information is correct, Information is not fully correct, Information is not taxable, Information relates to other PAN, Information is duplicate, and Information is denied.

5. After clicking the required feedback type, the user can update the details of the amount or any other correction, the corrected figure shall be used in the pre-filled data while filing a return of income and will be updated in TIS also.

What to do if there is an error in AIS or Form 26AS?

The income tax Department has issued a series of FAQs to address the doubts and queries of users. In this regard, they have specified that the AIS will include information that is presently available with the income tax department.

As per the Income Tax Act, certain entities are obligated to report high-value transactions to the department. The information in AIS will be displayed only after it receives information from the reporting entities. There may be chances that the data of a particular period is not received or updated. Hence, the taxpayers should check all related information and report complete and accurate information in the income tax return. The taxpayer should also follow the feedback mechanism to report errors in AIS where there is a mismatch in AIS and ITR. This mismatch will be considered an underreporting of income unless you rectify the errors in AIS. As a consequence, you may have to pay hefty penalties and interest. The Annual Information Statement is a very well-designed feature by the Income Tax department to allow users/ Taxpayers to view their summarized information sources. AIS will help taxpayers and the Income Tax Department in return of income as all information is available under one statement, and this solves the main purpose of Taxpayers, i.e., EASE OF FILING RETURN OF INCOME.