Before filing your Income Tax return, you need to check various documents to know details of your income and amount of tax deducted at source (TDS). To cross check details of tax deducted from your income, you need to first check Form 26AS online.
Form 26AS is an online consolidated statement available at income tax website which shows details of tax deducted at source (TDS).
In addition to Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) details, it also let you know tax collected, advance tax paid, self assessment tax paid and amount refunded to you for a particular financial year.
Please note, financial year is also referred to as previous year.
Form 26AS is the most important document that assessee should verify before preparing Income Tax return.
You can easily check whether the payer has actually deposited the tax deducted amount against your PAN with the government or not. We suggest taxpayers to check it periodically, especially every quarter to know whether the concern person who has deducted tax from your income has deposited it against your PAN.
For instance, if TDS has been deducted by employer from your salary, then quarterly you can cross check form 26AS to verify whether the exact amount has been deposited against your Permannet account number (PAN). In case of any discripancies, you can take up with your employer.
Structure of Form 26AS
Form 26AS has 7 parts i.e. part A, B, C, D, E, F and G.
Part A of Form 26AS contains details of tax deducted, deductor’s name and TAN, type of income from which tax has been deducted.
PART A1 will have details of interest paid on which TDS has not been deducted for submission of Form 15G/15H to the bank.
Tax deducted at source on sale of immovable property will reflect in Part A2.
Tax deducted from your income during a particular financial year must reflect in form 26AS. If it’s not reflecting, then the deductor might not have filed TDS return which is required to be filed every quarter for the amount of tax deducted against the pan number.
Tax collected at source is in Part B. If you have purchases a car or jewellery during the year the tax collected on such purchase will appear here. You can take tax credit of this amount in your income tax return.
Part C contains all taxes paid such as tax paid on self assessment, regular assessment and in advance.
Any tax refund received by you during the financial year along with interest if any can be found in Part D of the form 26AS.
All high value transactions like depositing large sum of money into your saving bank account, purchase of bonds, purchase of property etc will reflect in part E of form 26AS based on the AIR filed by bank or financial institutions.
Part F will have TDS details where property has been bought by you for a consideration exceeding Rs. 50 lakhs.
Finally part G will have details if you are a defaulter in payment of TDS, or filing of TDS return.
Information in 26AS is generally updated on a quarterly basis.
TDS Mismatch in Form 26AS
Any mismatch between 26AS and details given in Income Tax return may lead to further enquiry from the department.
In case of mismatch between the TDS claimed in Income Tax return and the amount reflecting in form 26AS, tax officer will consider the amount that is appearing in the Form 26AS. Therefore, it’s always suggested to view it before filing your Income Tax return.
Mismatch can happen when deductor has not paid the amount of TDS to the government, or after making payment, he has not filed TDS return as required to be filed quarterly or while filing quarterly TDS return, wrong PAN has been mentioned.
If you are finding any discrepancies in form 26AS, then contact the deductor to rectify such mistake before filing your Income Tax return.
If you have filed your income tax return based on certain excess tax credit in form 26AS, which is later on rectified by the deductor as it should not have come to you, then Income Tax department may issue a demand notice to recover the tax credit.
In such type of cases, you are suggested to contact the deductor to rectify such mistakes before filing return. If you cannot wait due to time constraint, then file your Income Tax Return by not taking the tax credit.
You are required to check status of each entry in form 26AS. If the status is F, then the entry is in final status. If it’s U, then the deductor has done some mistake.
To download or view form 26AS, you need to log in to your tax filing account on Income Tax department’s e-filing website with your PAN and password. If you forgot your password, then you can directly login from net banking facility of any authorised bank.
After log in, you need to click on “view form 26AS (tax credit)” tab under “My Account” tabs. You will be taken TDS-CPC website to view the form.
In addition to form 26AS, we suggest you to check Annual information statement (AIS) for the financial year before filing your annual tax return.
