Annual Tax Statement: Form 26AS Is Now Form 168

Annual Tax Statement: Form 26AS Is Now Form 168

Annual Tax Statement: Form 26AS Is Now Form 168

For close to two decades, Form 26AS has been the first thing every taxpayer, and every CA, pulls up before touching an ITR. It is the tax passbook that shows what has actually been deducted, collected, and paid against your PAN. Under the new Act, this form keeps doing the same job, but it now has a new number, a new structure, and one change that genuinely affects how reconciliation is done.

Old form: Form 26AS, notified under the Income Tax Act, 1961

New form: Form 168, prescribed under Rule 245 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified under Section 510 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, applicable from Tax Year 2026-27 onwards

What the Form Covers

Form 26AS, and now Form 168, is a consolidated annual statement linked to a taxpayer's PAN. It pulls together every tax-related credit and transaction the department has on record for that year, generated automatically, not filled out by the taxpayer. The core categories have always included:

  • TDS deducted by employers, banks, and other deductors
  • TCS collected by sellers on specified transactions
  • Advance tax and self-assessment tax paid
  • Specified Financial Transactions, meaning high value transactions such as property purchases, large cash deposits, mutual fund investments, and similar reportable activity
  • Refunds issued and any outstanding tax demand or proceedings on record

Before filing any ITR, this statement is the primary check to confirm that tax actually deducted or collected on your behalf has, in fact, reached the department and is available as credit against your PAN.

What Actually Changed

This is a genuine restructuring, not a plain rename, though the core purpose is unchanged.

  • Form number: 26AS becomes 168
  • Legal basis: moves from the old Act's provisions to Rule 245 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, read with Section 510 of the Income-tax Act, 2025
  • Merger with AIS: Form 168 is explicitly described as the evolved Annual Information Statement, folding the AIS function into the same statutory form rather than keeping AIS as a separate, non-statutory layer sitting alongside Form 26AS
  • New coding structure: entries that were previously reported using section-based TDS and TCS codes, referencing old sections such as 192, 194A, or 194C, now use a new income-type payment code series running from 1001 to 1092, replacing the old section-name based reporting
  • Applicability: Form 168 applies from Tax Year 2026-27 onwards. The return being filed for AY 2026-27, covering income earned in FY 2025-26, continues to use Form 26AS as before

The most practically significant change for day to day reconciliation work is the new payment code series. Anyone used to scanning a Form 26AS entry and immediately recognizing 194J as professional fees or 194I as rent will need to learn the new 1001 to 1092 code mapping once Form 168 becomes the operative statement.

Worked Example

Current filing season, AY 2026-27, covering FY 2025-26 income:

Ms. Rao, a freelance consultant, is filing her return for FY 2025-26. She pulls up Form 26AS and finds a TDS entry under section code 194J showing Rs. 45,000 deducted by a client on professional fees of Rs. 4,50,000. She matches this against her own invoice records and claims the Rs. 45,000 as tax credit in her ITR. This process is unchanged from prior years, since AY 2026-27 returns continue to rely on Form 26AS and the familiar section-code reporting.

Next filing season, AY 2027-28, covering FY 2026-27 income:

Ms. Rao repeats the same freelance engagement in FY 2026-27. When she checks her tax credit statement for that year, she is now looking at Form 168, not Form 26AS. The same professional fee TDS deduction appears, but instead of a familiar section code like 194J, the entry carries a payment code from the new 1001 to 1092 series. She, or her CA, needs to map that new code back to professional fees TDS to confirm the entry is correct and matches her invoice records. The underlying reconciliation logic, matching deducted TDS against income actually earned, has not changed. The reference codes she is matching against have.

Why This Matters for Filing

  • No change needed for the current filing season. Returns for AY 2026-27, covering FY 2025-26 income, continue to use Form 26AS exactly as before. Do not confuse clients into thinking Form 168 applies to this year's filing.
  • Build familiarity with the new payment codes ahead of time. Since Form 168 replaces section-based codes with the 1001 to 1092 series, internal reconciliation templates and client checklists should be updated with a code mapping reference before FY 2026-27 data starts appearing.
  • TDS credit still follows the same hierarchy rule. Where a conflict exists between the tax credit statement and AIS-style broader transaction data, the tax credit statement, whether Form 26AS or its successor Form 168, remains the authoritative source for claiming TDS and TCS credit in the ITR.
  • The AIS and Form 26AS merger under Form 168 means clients will eventually check one consolidated statement instead of cross-referencing two separate ones, which should reduce reconciliation errors once the transition is complete, but expect some data lag and formatting adjustment in the first year or two of the new form.

Bottom Line

Form 26AS has become Form 168, and the job it does for taxpayers has not changed: consolidated proof of TDS, TCS, advance tax, and specified financial transactions against a single PAN. What has changed is the legal basis, the merger with AIS into one statutory document, and a completely new payment code system replacing the familiar section-based codes. For this filing season, keep using Form 26AS as always. For FY 2026-27 onwards, start building comfort with the new code series before it becomes the only reference available.