Three documents on the income tax portal show "your" financial data — and they don't always agree with each other or with your own records. Knowing what each one is for, and reconciling all three before you file, prevents most post-filing notices.
The Three Documents at a Glance
| Document | What It Contains | Primary Use |
|---|
| Form 26AS | TDS, TCS, advance tax, self-assessment tax, and refund details linked to your PAN | Verifying TDS/TCS credit claims in your ITR |
| AIS (Annual Information Statement) | Everything in 26AS, plus securities/mutual fund transactions, dividend & interest income, foreign remittances (LRS), GST turnover, and other SFT-reported high-value transactions | Checking for income you may have missed reporting |
| TIS (Taxpayer Information Summary) | A simplified, category-wise aggregation derived from AIS — e.g., total "Interest income", total "Dividend", total "Sale of securities" | Quick reference figures to plug into ITR schedules |
Why the Three Don't Always Match
Form 26AS is built strictly from TDS/TCS returns (Form 24Q, 26Q, 27Q, 27EQ) filed by deductors and from tax payment challans. AIS pulls in a much wider set of sources — banks, mutual fund registrars (CAMS/KFintech), depositories (NSDL/CDSL), registrars of property, and foreign remittance data from authorised dealers, all under the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) framework.
This means AIS can show income (e.g., interest credited by a bank, or a mutual fund redemption) for which no TDS was deducted and which therefore never appears in Form 26AS at all. Conversely, Form 26AS may show a TDS entry that hasn't yet been picked up and reflected in AIS due to processing lag. Neither document is "wrong" — they're built for different purposes.
A Step-by-Step Reconciliation Process
- Download Form 26AS from the e-filing portal (Income Tax → e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Form 26AS) and verify the TDS total matches your Form 16 and any other TDS certificates (Form 16A) you've received.
- Open AIS (Services → Annual Information Statement) and go through each category — Salary, Interest, Dividend, Securities Transactions, Mutual Fund Transactions, GST Turnover, Foreign Remittance, etc.
- Cross-check each AIS entry against your own records. For securities/mutual funds, AIS typically shows the sale consideration — you'll still need to compute cost of acquisition separately to arrive at the actual gain.
- Use TIS as your summary checklist — confirm every non-zero category in TIS has a corresponding entry in your ITR (even if the net effect is a small or zero gain/loss, it should still generally be reported).
- Flag discrepancies via AIS feedback if an entry is wrong, duplicated, or belongs to someone else (e.g., a joint account where income is being attributed entirely to you).
⚠ Common trap: AIS frequently shows the
full sale value of shares or mutual fund units sold during the year, which can look like a large number. This is not your taxable income — it's the gross proceeds. The taxable amount is the
gain (sale value minus cost of acquisition, adjusted per the rules in our
capital gains tax guide). Don't report the gross sale value as income.
What If You Find Unreported Income in AIS?
If AIS reveals income you hadn't accounted for — say, savings account interest that quietly crossed the ₹10,000 exemption threshold, or a dividend reinvestment you forgot about — include it in your ITR computation. The Income Tax Department's automated processing increasingly cross-matches ITR figures against AIS, and unexplained gaps are a common trigger for notices under Section 143(1) or, in more significant cases, reassessment proceedings.
If you've already paid advance tax or have additional TDS credits relevant to this income, make sure those are also reflected — see our advance tax guide for how additional income streams interact with your instalment obligations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Form 26AS, AIS and TIS? ▼
Form 26AS is a tax credit statement showing TDS, TCS, and tax paid against your PAN. AIS is a broader report covering TDS/TCS plus securities transactions, mutual fund activity, dividends, interest, foreign remittances and other high-value transactions under SFT reporting. TIS is a simplified category-wise summary derived from AIS to help you quickly find figures for your ITR.
Which document should I rely on — Form 26AS or AIS? ▼
Use both for different purposes. Form 26AS is authoritative for TDS/TCS credit claims, since the department's processing matches your ITR claims against it. AIS/TIS should be used to check whether you've missed reporting any income the department already knows about — if AIS shows income not in your return, include it even if 26AS shows no corresponding TDS.
What should I do if AIS shows incorrect information? ▼
Submit feedback on the specific AIS entry — options include 'Information is correct', 'Duplicate', 'Denied', 'Relates to other PAN/year', or 'Incorrect'. This creates a dispute trail but doesn't immediately change the record. File your ITR based on your own correct figures and keep the feedback acknowledgment as supporting documentation.