What Is Form 26AS? The Tax Form That Can Save You From Notices
ITR Filing 2025: Form 26AS helps in avoiding tax notices by ensuring that TDS and TCS are correctly reflected in your tax returns.
ITR Filing 2025: The income tax filing season 2025 has started, with the Excel Utilities for ITR-1 and ITR-4 already available for download on the e-filing portal. So far, a total of 1,23,075 ITRs have been filed. Those planning to file ITR need to carefully check their incomes to file their returns to avoid any future tax notices. One document can prevent costly mistakes — Form 26AS.
Every year, thousands of taxpayers get IT notices due to mismatches in their reported income. In most cases, it could've been avoided by just checking this one document: Form 26AS. Here's how:
What Is Form 26AS?
Form 26AS is a consolidated tax statement issued by the income tax department that provides details of tax credits against your PAN. It contains details like TDS deducted by employers, banks, etc; advance tax paid; high-value transactions; and refunds issue.
Why Form 26AS Is Important
It helps taxpayers in many ways like ensuring that you don't under-report income, ensures refunds don't get delayed, and reduces chances of being picked for scrutiny.
Aditya Bhattacharya, partner at King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates and Attorneys, said, 'Form 26AS is a consolidated tax statement that provides details of tax credits against your PAN. It helps in avoiding tax notices by ensuring that the tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) are correctly reflected in your tax returns."
If there are discrepancies between Form 26AS and your tax return, it could lead to notices from the tax department. By reviewing Form 26AS, you can ensure all your tax credits are accounted for, thus preventing potential issues with tax authorities, he added.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
Form 26AS: What To Do If There's A Mismatch?
AIS Vs Form 26AS: What's The Difference?
In recent years, the income tax department introduced the Annual Information Statement (AIS) as a more comprehensive version of Form 26AS. While AIS covers a wider range of financial information, it doesn't replace Form 26AS entirely — both documents still coexist, and each serves its own purpose.
What is AIS?
The Annual Information Statement provides a detailed snapshot of your financial transactions as reported by various entities (like banks, mutual fund houses, registrars, etc.) to the income tax department. It includes TDS and TCS data, interest income from savings and FDs, mutual fund purchases and redemptions, share trading activity (scrip-wise), credit card bill payments, high-value purchases, and property transactions, among others.
What Is Form 16, When Will You Get It?
Form 16 is an income tax certificate issued by your employer. It shows a detailed summary of your salary paid, TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) deducted by the employer, and deposited with the Income Tax Department on your behalf.
In simple terms, it is your proof of tax deducted and is used while filing your Income Tax Return (ITR). Employers must issue Form 16 by June 15 of the next financial year after deducting TDS.
So, for FY 2024-25, your employer must provide Form 16 by June 15, 2025.
About the Author
Mohammad Haris
Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to markets, economy and companies. Having a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris has been previously asso...Read More
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June 04, 2025, 10:34 IST
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