The Income Tax Department now knows more about your finances than you might think. Every bank interest credit, every mutual fund transaction, every property deal, and every dividend payment gets reported against your PAN. This information lives in your Annual Information Statement, commonly known as AIS.

 

Filing your Income Tax Return without checking this document is like signing a contract without reading the fine print. It invites notices, delays refunds, and creates unnecessary stress.

 

Let us walk you through everything you need to know about AIS, how to spot errors, get them corrected, and file your return without fear of mismatches.

 

What Exactly is AIS and Why Should You Care

 

AIS is a comprehensive financial statement available on the Income Tax e-filing portal. It consolidates all financial transactions reported against your PAN for a specific financial year. Think of it as the tax department's version of your financial yearbook.

 

The statement covers far more than just tax deducted at source. While Form 26AS primarily shows TDS and TCS data, AIS provides a much wider picture including salary income, interest from savings accounts and fixed deposits, dividend income, capital market transactions involving stocks and mutual funds, property transactions, foreign remittances, and even GST turnover information. 

 

This document is not just for the department's convenience. It helps you file accurately by showing what has been reported about you. Over five crore taxpayers have already accessed their AIS, according to Income Tax Department data. The system is designed to promote transparency and voluntary compliance, making it easier for you to get your taxes right.

 

Understanding TIS The Summary That Matters

 

Within the AIS system, you will find something called the Taxpayer Information Summary or TIS. This is essentially a category-wise summary of your AIS data.

 

The TIS shows two important figures for each category like salary, interest, or dividends. The value processed by the system after removing duplicates, and the value accepted by you after you have submitted feedback or confirmed the source. The accepted values from TIS are what get used to prefill your ITR. This makes it crucial to review and correct any errors in AIS before your return gets populated with wrong numbers.

 

Common Errors You Might Find in Your AIS

 

Errors in AIS are more common than most people realise. Chartered Accountant Shefali Mundra, a tax expert at ClearTax, confirms that discrepancies in TDS and interest income appear frequently.

Here are typical errors taxpayers encounter:

 

Duplicate entries are a frequent headache. Sometimes the same transaction gets reported twice, perhaps by a bank branch and its head office, or by different departments of the same institution. Incorrect amounts often appear where a mutual fund reports gross redemption value instead of actual capital gains. Sometimes a transaction that belongs to a different financial year or another person's PAN ends up in your statement because of reporting errors. Joint property purchases often show the full transaction value against both PANs even when each party has only a partial share.

 

Step by Step Guide to Review Your AIS

 

Log in to the official Income Tax e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in. Navigate to the Services tab and select Annual Information Statement AIS. Select the relevant financial year, which for this filing season is 2025-26.

 

Open the AIS tile to view the statement. The data is divided into sections covering personal information, TDS and TCS details, specified financial transactions, tax payments, and refund or demand activity.

 

Carefully compare every transaction against your own records. Check your bank statements, Form 16 from your employer, salary slips, mutual fund statements, and broker reports. Cross-check the total TDS shown in AIS with Form 26AS, which is available on the TRACES portal.

 

Do not assume the pre-filled data in your ITR is always correct. The portal attempts to auto-populate entries from AIS, but mistakes can still happen. Trust your actual records more than the pre-filled numbers.

 

How to Correct Errors Using Feedback Option

 

If you spot an error in your AIS, you have a way to fix it. The Income Tax Department has provided a feedback mechanism for exactly this purpose.

 

Locate the incorrect transaction in your AIS and click on the Optional or Add Feedback button next to it. Choose the feedback category that best matches your situation.

 

Select Information is not fully correct when the reported amount is wrong. Use Duplicate information when the same transaction appears more than once. Choose Information relates to other PAN or year when the transaction belongs to someone else or a different financial year. Select Information is not taxable or Denied when the transaction does not belong to you at all.

 

After submitting the feedback, the modified value appears alongside the reported value. The TIS derived value updates automatically to reflect your correction. You will receive an email and SMS confirmation along with an Acknowledgement Receipt you can download for your records.

 

What Happens After You Submit Feedback

 

Once you submit feedback, the Income Tax Department verifies it with the source that reported the information, such as a bank or mutual fund company. This verification process can take 30 to 90 days.

 

The feedback status in your AIS will show as Accepted or Rejected depending on the outcome of verification. If accepted, your AIS and TIS automatically update to reflect the corrected data. If rejected, the reporting entity disagreed with your feedback. You can escalate by contacting the source directly or raising a grievance on the portal.

 

Here is a critical point to remember. Never delay filing your ITR waiting for feedback to be processed. Missing the ITR deadline has penalties. Corrections can follow in parallel. Always file using your actual verified income figures.

 

Filing Your ITR After Reviewing AIS

 

The deadline to file ITR for financial year 2025-26 is 31 July 2026 unless extended. If you miss this deadline, you can still file a belated return by 31 December 2026 along with a late fee.

 

When you file, ensure every category in AIS salary, interest, dividend, securities is reflected in your return. Your Form 26AS holds your finalised tax deductions. Your TDS claims in the ITR must match what is reflected there.

 

AIS is a data aggregation tool while Form 26AS is the official record for tax credits. When they conflict, 26AS takes precedence for your ITR filing. However, do not ignore AIS. The department increasingly matches ITR with AIS data, not just Form 26AS.

 

What If You Have Already Filed Your Return

 

Even if you have already filed your return and then notice a discrepancy, it is not too late. Section 139(5) allows you to file a revised return. If you have received an intimation under Section 143(1), you may still get a chance to clarify it under Sections 139(9) or 143(1).

 

Filing a revised return involves logging in to the portal, selecting File Revised Return, entering your original acknowledgement number, and making the necessary corrections. A revised return is a complete replacement of the original. It should be submitted before the end of the assessment year.

 

Practical Examples of Common AIS Issues

 

Consider Rohit, whose AIS showed Rs 84,000 FD interest twice once from the bank branch and once post merger. He marked one entry as duplicate, and TIS updated to show the correct amount.

 

Anita and her husband bought a flat jointly for Rs 90 lakh. AIS showed Rs 90 lakh against each PAN. Each spouse provided feedback that the information was not fully correct and reported their actual Rs 45 lakh share, avoiding a high-value transaction query.

 

Sanjay's broker statement showed Rs 9,200 dividend but AIS showed Rs 11,000 because one company credited it in April. He verified the record dates, accepted the AIS value for the correct financial year, and reported Rs 11,000 in Schedule OS matching TIS exactly.

 

These examples show that most discrepancies are resolvable. The key is not to ignore them.

 

Final Words of Advice

 

We at CA Dhiraj Ostwal and our team believe that checking your AIS before filing is the single most important step you can take for a stress-free tax season. The department already knows your financial story. Your job is to make sure the story is accurate.

 

Keep these points in mind. Download your AIS and TIS close to your filing date because AIS keeps updating. Keep supporting documents like Form 16, bank interest certificates, and broker statements ready to compare against AIS. Maintain notes of any feedback submitted with dates for future reference. Ensure your PAN is correctly linked to Aadhaar and across all banks and investment platforms.

 

Reviewing AIS takes time, but it saves far more time and stress later. A few rupees of missed interest income may not seem significant, but the tax department sees the full digital trail. Their systems will flag the mismatch. Fixing it after filing is possible, but ideally it should never come to that.

 

This filing season, start with your AIS. Check every transaction. Submit feedback where needed. File your return with confidence knowing that what you report matches what the department already knows.

 

The Income Tax Department has made the process easier than ever. Use the tools available, stay proactive, and you can avoid most common tax notices. Your AIS is your friend in this process. Treat it with the attention it deserves.