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The income tax filing season is underway, making it essential for salaried individuals to thoroughly review their financial transactions for the fiscal year 2025-26. Accurate filing depends on understanding income sources, tax rules, and eligible deductions.
Essential Verification Tools
The Income Tax Department offers two key resources for this review: the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Form 26AS. These are vital for cross-referencing financial dealings and Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), ensuring your tax filing matches government records.
Understanding AIS and Form 26AS
The AIS provides a detailed summary of your financial activities, including salary, TDS, bank interest, dividends, and stock transactions. Form 26AS acts as a consolidated tax statement linked to your Permanent Account Number (PAN). It shows TDS, Tax Collected at Source (TCS), advance tax payments, self-assessment tax, refunds, and significant financial deals like mutual fund investments, property purchases, and stock trades.
What Taxpayers Need to Verify
For salaried taxpayers who do not require an audit, the deadline to file income tax returns for FY 2025-26 is July 31, 2026. To prevent tax notices or refund delays, it's critical that your income tax return (ITR) information exactly matches the data in your AIS and Form 26AS.
Taxpayers should check details in their AIS, such as salary and pension income, bank interest, TDS, dividend income, stock and mutual fund transactions, rental income, foreign remittances, tax refunds, and PAN information. Also, review Specified Financial Transactions (SFT), GST data, and challan payments. Likewise, Form 26AS should be checked for TDS on salary and interest, TCS, advance tax, self-assessment tax payments, refunds, and high-value transactions involving shares, mutual funds, and property.
If you find any discrepancies, duplicate entries, or errors in these forms, you can submit feedback and request corrections through the income tax portal.