AIS and Form 26AS: How to Reconcile Before You File ITR

Pre-filing checklist for Form 26AS (TDS/TCS credits), Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS): download paths, feedback, prefill traps and mismatch hygiene.

By Kanoons Editorial Team · 12 min read · Last verified 2026-10-06

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Summary

Filing an ITR without reading Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) is how ordinary years become section 143(1) adjustment letters. From AY 2023-24 onwards the jobs are split: 26AS is your TDS/TCS credit statement on TRACES; AIS is the wider information the department already holds; TIS is the deduplicated summary that feeds prefill. Verified against the Income Tax Department AIS FAQ on 6 October 2026.

26AS → claimable TDS/TCS (and related tax-credit views on TRACES); not the full financial picture.
AIS → TDS/TCS + SFT + other reported information, with feedback.
TIS → category totals after system processing + your accepted values → ITR prefill.
Reconcile books / Form 16 / broker statements → 26AS → AIS → TIS → ITR, in that spirit.
Service path: ITR Filing.

What each statement is for

Statement	Where you open it	What it answers
Form 26AS	e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Form 26AS → TRACES	Which deductors reported TDS/TCS against your PAN for the year
AIS	Dashboard AIS tile, or e-File → Income Tax Return → View AIS	Transaction-level information (Parts A/B: general, TDS/TCS, SFT, tax payments, demand/refund views, other information)
TIS	Same AIS compliance portal, TIS tile	Category-wise processed vs accepted totals used for prefill

AIS FAQ Q-3 is worth framing on your wall: AIS shows information presently available to the department — not a warranty that every rupee of your income is listed. You still report complete income.

Download and archive checklist

1. Log in at incometax.gov.in with the PAN that will file the return. 2. Download Form 26AS (PDF/HTML) for the assessment year. 3. Open AIS, select the financial year, download PDF + JSON (JSON is easier to diff next year). 4. Open TIS after any feedback cycle and save the category totals. 5. Store files with Form 16 / 16A, broker P&L, bank interest certificates and property sale deeds in one AY folder.

AIS PDFs are commonly password-protected with PAN (lower case) + DDMMYYYY date of birth / incorporation — keep that pattern handy for staff hand-offs.

Reconciliation order that actually works

1. Lock tax credits in Form 26AS

Match every salary Form 16 Part A TDS line to 26AS.
Match non-salary Form 16A / deductee statements (194J, 194C, 194-IA, bank interest, etc.).
Tick advance tax / self-assessment challans that should appear in the tax-payment views you rely on.
Claim in the ITR only what 26AS supports. Missing credit → deductor correction, not creative scheduling.

2. Walk AIS category by category

Typical high-noise categories for SMEs and professionals:

Salary / Annexure II style reporting
Interest from banks and corporates
Dividend
Sale of securities / mutual funds (SFT)
Property-related SFT lines
GST turnover (EXC-GSTR3B and siblings — AIS FAQ Q-15 confirms GST turnover can appear)

For each row: does this belong to this PAN, this year, and is the amount right? Duplicates across broker + depository + fund house are common.

3. Submit AIS feedback where needed

Per AIS FAQ Q-10 / Q-11:

Open the row → Optional feedback → choose reason → submit.
Keep the acknowledgement; activity history records each change.
Modified values appear beside reported values and update the derived TIS figures after processing.

Feedback is not a magic erase button for taxable income you actually earned — it is the channel for wrong, duplicate, other-person, other-year or non-taxable reporting.

4. Read TIS before you trust prefill

Prefill follows accepted / confirmed TIS values, not raw AIS noise. If you feedback on Monday and prefill on Monday morning, you may still see stale totals — re-download TIS after the portal reflects the change, then start the return.

Mid-article CTA: File ITR with a clean 26AS / AIS tie-out → Cross-sell: Capital Gains Tax, TDS Return Filing, Income Tax Notice Response.

After filing — Tax Credit Mismatch

Even a careful return can disagree with 26AS. The e-filing Services → Tax Credit Mismatch tool (see ITD’s user manual) compares TDS/TCS/advance-tax figures in the filed ITR against 26AS for that AY. Use it immediately after upload if the portal flags credits — fix via revised return or deductor correction, not by waiting for CPC to guess.

SME / director special cases

Multiple deductors on professional fees: 26AS lines should match each 16A; AIS may also show GST turnover that must reconcile to your books, not to wishful nil returns.
Family accounts / wrong PAN at the bank: feedback + bank correction; do not “adjust” someone else’s interest as yours.
Capital gains: broker Excel is source of truth for acquisition cost; AIS often carries only sale-side SFT — see Capital gains tax guide.
Employer still filing corrections: delay e-verification only if you have a documented credit fix in flight; otherwise file on time and revise.

Common failure modes

Filing from prefill without opening AIS once.
Claiming TDS sitting only in an email Form 16A but never in 26AS.
Ignoring duplicate SFT rows so TIS double-counts securities sales.
Treating AIS silence as “no income” (FAQ Q-3).
Skipping GST-turnover lines when the company ITR / turnover schedules tell a different story.

Primary sources

Income Tax Department — AIS FAQ
Income Tax Department — Tax Credit Mismatch manual
incometax.gov.in → AIS / Form 26AS / e-File services
TRACES Form 26AS view (opened from the e-filing redirect)

Disclaimer

General information only — not legal or tax advice. Kanoons is not a law firm or accounting firm. Portal menus, prefill behaviour and credit-matching rules change; confirm against the live e-filing / AIS / TRACES screens for your assessment year before acting. See our Disclaimer.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Form 26AS and AIS?

From AY 2023-24 onwards, Form 26AS on the TRACES portal (opened from the e-filing site) shows TDS/TCS-related data. Other financial information the department holds about you — SFT, salary annexures, specified other information, and related tax-payment / demand-refund views inside AIS — lives in the Annual Information Statement. AIS also lets you submit feedback; Form 26AS does not. Source: Income Tax Department AIS FAQ Q-6.

What is TIS and why does it matter for ITR prefill?

Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) aggregates AIS information category-wise. It shows values processed by the system (after deduplication rules) and values accepted by the taxpayer / confirmed by the source after feedback. Information accepted in TIS is what the department uses for return pre-filling where applicable (AIS FAQ Q-5).

How do I download AIS and Form 26AS?

Log in at incometax.gov.in. For AIS: Dashboard → Annual Information Statement (AIS) → Proceed, or e-File → Income Tax Return → View AIS. For Form 26AS: e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Form 26AS (redirects to TRACES). AIS can be downloaded as PDF, JSON or CSV; the AIS PDF is typically password-protected (PAN in lower case + date of birth / incorporation).

What should I do if an AIS entry is wrong or duplicated?

Open the information row in AIS, use Optional feedback, choose the matching reason (not correct, not taxable, other PAN/year, duplicate, partially correct, etc.), submit, and keep the acknowledgement. Modified values appear beside reported values and feed into TIS. There is currently no stated cap on how many times you may revise feedback (AIS FAQ Q-14).

Can I claim TDS that appears in AIS but not in Form 26AS?

Credit claims are anchored to what Form 26AS / the tax-credit system recognises. If AIS shows a deduction that 26AS does not, chase the deductor for a corrected TDS return (24Q / 26Q / 27Q / 27EQ) rather than inventing credit in the ITR. After filing, the portal’s Tax Credit Mismatch service compares your return claims to 26AS.