AIS vs Form 16 vs 26AS: Fix Mismatches Before Filing ITR
Your employer hands you Form 16 by 15 June, you trust it, you file — and three months later a notice lands because a ₹40,000 dividend sitting in your AIS never made it to your return. Form 16 only knows your salary. The tax department knows everything. Reconcile all three documents before you file your ITR for FY 2025-26, or the mismatch files a notice for you.
Summary
| Document | What it covers | Treat it as | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form 16 | Salary + TDS by your employer | Salary head only | Employer (by 15 Jun 2026) |
| Form 26AS | All TDS/TCS credited to your PAN | Authority on tax credit | TRACES / e-filing portal |
| AIS | Every income third parties reported | Authority on income completeness | e-filing portal (Sec 285BB) |
| TIS | Simplified, pre-aggregated AIS | A starting figure, not gospel | Derived from AIS |
Why three documents, not one
Form 16 — narrow but precise
Form 16 reports one thing well: salary paid and TDS deducted by your employer. It is silent on bank interest, dividends, mutual fund capital gains, rent received, or a second employer. If salary is your only income and you have zero other entries in AIS, Form 16 alone is enough. Almost nobody on a ₹15L+ income is in that bucket.
Form 26AS — your tax-credit ledger
26AS lists every rupee of TDS and TCS deposited against your PAN. This is what you can actually claim in your ITR under Section 199. Rule: never claim more TDS than 26AS shows — the refund will be held. If a deductor filed late or quoted the wrong PAN, the credit is missing here; chase the deductor to revise their TDS return, don't just claim it.
AIS — the completeness check
The Annual Information Statement, your legal information backbone under Section 285BB, captures what every reporting entity told the department: SFT high-value transactions, dividends, interest, securities and MF sales, foreign remittances, property deals. Anything in AIS but missing from your ITR is the single biggest notice trigger today, because matching is automated.
TIS — a summary, not a substitute
TIS pre-aggregates AIS into one figure per head. Convenient, but it inherits every duplicate and wrong entry in AIS. File off TIS blindly and you may overpay — or under-report.
Real example: Salaried, ₹28L CTC, Bengaluru
| Item | Form 16 says | AIS / 26AS says | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salary | ₹26,40,000 | ₹26,40,000 | Matches — use it |
| Savings + FD interest | ₹0 | ₹62,000 | Add; claim 80TTA ₹10,000 |
| Equity MF dividend | ₹0 | ₹38,000 | Add under other sources |
| LTCG on MF sale | ₹0 | ₹1,85,000 | Compute via Sec 112A |
| Sold flat (SFT) | ₹0 | ₹70,00,000 | Report or file feedback |
Filing only off Form 16 here under-reports ₹2,85,000 of income and ignores a ₹70 lakh SFT entry — a guaranteed notice. The flat sale may genuinely belong to a co-owner; that is exactly what AIS feedback is for.
Three mismatches that auto-trigger a notice
The department's system flags these without a human ever looking:
- AIS income missing from your ITR. Interest, dividends, or capital gains visible in AIS but absent from the return is the most common flag. The system compares totals head by head — a ₹38,000 dividend gap is enough.
- TDS claimed more than 26AS shows. If you claim credit your 26AS doesn't confirm, the excess is disallowed and your refund is frozen until the deductor revises. Claim only the 26AS figure under Section 199.
- SFT high-value entries left unexplained. Property sales, large MF redemptions, and aggregate FD interest above the reporting threshold sit in AIS as SFT codes. Either report the income or file feedback flagging it as another person's PAN — silence reads as concealment.
A genuine mismatch is not a crime, but an unexplained one invites scrutiny under Section 143(1) and, in worse cases, 148. Feedback is your paper trail.
What to do this week
- Download all three for FY 2025-26 from incometax.gov.in — AIS and 26AS under Services; wait for Form 16 by 15 June. Pull AIS in JSON too.
- Reconcile tax credits first: every TDS line in Form 16/16A must appear in 26AS. Claim only what 26AS confirms.
- Reconcile income head by head against AIS — salary, interest, dividends, capital gains, rent. Verify each against your bank certificate, broker contract note, or rent agreement.
- For any wrong AIS entry, submit feedback before filing: Services → AIS → click the line → pick Information is not fully correct, Income relates to other PAN/year, Duplicate, or Denied → submit. The corrected value flows into your TIS.
File only after all three agree
Form 16 tells you what your employer knows; 26AS tells you what you can claim; AIS tells you what the department already sees. When the three line up — and you have logged feedback on whatever doesn't — your return is notice-proof. Skip this and the ₹40,000 you forgot becomes a ₹40,000 problem with interest under Section 234.
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