All You Need to Know About the New Annual Information Statement (AIS)

November 10, 2021 Mutual Fund

India is aiming for growth with advancement in technology and has been adapting various measures to connect the economic activities for better functioning of the operations. Latest such measures are seen while streamlining tax compliance through digitization and providing easier access to tax related information besides more scope for self-assessment.

While filing Income Tax Return, the taxpayers have access to Form 26AS on the TRACES portal, which was initially introduced as a tax credit statement including details of taxes deducted from the income of taxpayers. It basically has the details of the tax credited against the PAN of a taxpayer. The Union Budget 2020-21 proposed to extend the mandate of Form 26AS and make it more comprehensive, with detailed information about the taxpayer’s tax profile.

The Form 26AS is detailed information by the Tax department as a consolidated annual tax statement that includes information on tax deducted/tax collected at source, advance tax, and self-assessment that is available on the Income Tax website against a taxpayer’s Permanent Account Number (PAN).

Recently, the Income Tax Department has rolled out the new Annual Information Statement (AIS) on the Compliance Portal, which provides a comprehensive view of information to a taxpayer with a facility to capture online feedback. AIS is the considerable aspect of information for the taxpayer as shown in Form 26AS. The new Annual Information Statement will contain additional details such as those related to interest on (savings account, recurring and fixed deposit), dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions, and remittances from abroad.

In simple words, AIS is a revised version of the existing Form 26AS which will assist taxpayers to analyse most of the tax-related information on various incomes under one roof. However, the Income Tax Department mentioned that display of Form 26AS on TRACES portal will continue to exist in parallel, until the new AIS is validated and operational.

What are the types of tax-related information reflected under Annual Information Statement (AIS)?

Similar to Form 26AS, the AIS displays information in two parts – Part A and Part B

Part A includes general information related to the taxpayer. It displays your PAN number, masked Aadhaar number, name, date of birth/incorporation/formation, contact details of the taxpayer.

Part B includes TDS/TCS information description, information received from reporting entities under Statement of Financial transaction (SFT) is displayed, information relating to advance tax and self-assessment tax and details of the demand raised and refund initiated (AY and amount) during a financial year.

In addition, it includes details of the information received from other sources, such as data pertaining to Annexure II, salary, Interest on refund, outward foreign remittance/purchase of foreign currency, etc. Plus, information of securities sold during the year along with the date of sale/transfer, security class and name, asset type, quantity, etc.

What are the benefits of the new Annual Information Statement (AIS) to the taxpayers?

AIS is introduced with the objective of displaying complete tax-related information to the taxpayers, promote voluntary compliance and enable seamless prefilling of ITR.

• The introduction of details along with more information differentiates AIS. The new changes made in AIS are a new version of Form 26AS that will ease the return filing process as it provides the relevant and necessary details.
• Most of the information that a taxpayer needs in terms of taxable income and taxes paid, to fill the tax return will be available in AIS all at one place.
• The reported information has been processed to remove duplicate information. Taxpayer will be able to download AIS information in PDF, JSON, and CSV formats.
• In case, if the taxpayer finds any discrepancy in the information, and if it is incorrect or relates to other person/year, duplicate etc., a facility has been provided to submit online feedback. Feedback can also be furnished by submitting multiple information in bulk. An AIS Utility has also been provided for taxpayers to view AIS and upload feedback in offline manner.
• A simplified Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) has also been generated for each taxpayer which shows aggregate value for the taxpayer for ease of filing return. It includes both the processes value (the value generated after deduplication of details based on pre-defined rules) and derived value (generated after considering the taxpayer feedback and processed value).
• If the taxpayer submits feedback on AIS, the derived information in TIS will be automatically updated in real time, and that information will be used for pre-filing of returns. This reduces the hassle for taxpayers and helps in filing ITR on time.

How taxpayers can access the new Annual Information Statement (AIS)?

• Step 1 – Login with your credentials first and the new AIS can be accessed by clicking on the link “Annual Information Statement (AIS)” under the “Services” tab on the new Income tax e-filing portal () /li
• Step 2 – Click on the “proceed” button, to continue further.
• Step 3 – Now you will be redirected to the compliance portal. You can view Taxpayer’s Information Summary (TIS) and Annual Information Statement (AIS) on the AIS home page.
• Step 4 – Now select the relevant financial year, and you can view the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) or the Annual Information Statement (AIS) by clicking the relevant tiles.
• Step 5 – You can also download the AIS and TIS by clicking on the download icon in the respective tiles. You can download the TIS in PDF format, whereas AIS can be downloaded in PDF or JSON formats.

If you download the PDF file, it will be password protected. To unlock, you need to enter the password as a combination of the PAN (in upper case) and your date of birth (in DDMMYYYY format). For example, if the PAN is AAAAA1234A, enter the PAN followed by the date of birth in case of individual taxpayer or date of incorporation/formation for a non-individual taxpayer in the format DDMMYYYY without any space.

Therefore, the launch of new AIS on the portal not only contains a comprehensive outlay of tax-related information of the taxpayers but also offers them with a service to submit feedback on the provided information. The Taxpayers are requested to check the accuracy of the information shown in Annual Information Statement (AIS) and provide feedback if the information needs any modification.

Given that, taxpayers should remember that Annual Information Statement (AIS) includes information presently available with the Income Tax Department. The value shown in Taxpayer’s Information Summary (TIS) may be considered while filing the ITR. In case the ITR has already been filed and some information has not been included in the ITR, the return may be revised to reflect the correct information.

The Board at Income Tax Department has stated that in case if there is a variation between the TDS/TCS information or the details of tax paid as displayed in Form26AS on TRACES portal and the TDS/TCS information or the information relating to tax payment as displayed in AIS on Compliance Portal, the taxpayer may rely on the information displayed on TRACES portal for the purpose of filing of ITR and for other tax compliance purposes.

Hence, the recent rollout of the new Annual Information Statement (AIS) is keeping with a major government push for bureaucratic reforms to modernize tax compliances in India, ease the availability of tax related information, and encourage accessibility and multiple uses of data.

This article first appeared on PersonalFN here