The Income-Tax Department has recently rolled out a new Annual Information Statement (AIS), which includes additional categories of information. With this information, the Department is expanding the list of high-value transactions covered so far under Form 26AS — which will remain in use until the new AIS becomes completely operational.

What is the AIS?

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

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The revised AIS includes additional categories of information – on interest, dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions, and remittances from abroad, along with information on many other transactions that are at present available with the Income-Tax Department.

Will Form 26A cease to exist now?

The Indian Express reported that Form 26AS will continue to exist on the TRACES portal until the new AIS is validated and is completely operational. In May 2020, the Department had notified the new AIS in Form 26AS, effective from June 1, 2020.

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The revised Form 26AS included all details provided by banks and financial institutions, which were earlier recorded in their Statement of Financial Transactions (SFTs).

On October 26, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued an order under Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act to expand the scope of reportable transactions under Form 26AS.

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The additional categories include foreign remittance made by any person through an authorised dealer, breakup of salary with deductions claimed by the employee, information in income tax returns of other taxpayers, interest on income tax refund, information published in SFTs along with off-market transactions reported by the depository/ registrar and transfer agent (RTA), and information about dividend and purchases of mutual fund reported by the RTA.

What do taxpayers have to do now?

The new AIS can be accessed by clicking on ‘Annual Information Statement (AIS)’ under the ‘Services’ tab on the new Income tax e-filing portal (incometax.gov.in).

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If the taxpayer feels that the information is incorrect, relates to another person/year, is a duplicate etc, a facility has been provided to submit feedback online. Feedback can also be furnished by submitting multiple information in bulk. An AIS Utility has also been provided for taxpayers to view their AIS and upload their feedback offline.

The reported value and value after feedback will be shown separately in the AIS. In case the information is modified/denied, the source of the information may be contacted for confirmation.