Form 26AS

Form 26AS is a consolidated annual tax statement linked to a taxpayer’s Permanent Account Number (PAN). It pulls together every entry of tax deducted, tax collected, advance tax paid, self-assessment tax paid, refunds issued, and certain high-value financial transactions reported against that PAN during a financial year. Form 26AS is generated and maintained by the Income Tax Department and is the single most important reference document for any taxpayer filing an Income Tax Return (ITR) — every credit claimed in the ITR must be traceable to an entry in Form 26AS.

What Form 26AS Contains

Form 26AS is divided into multiple parts, each corresponding to a different category of tax-related information:

• Part A — Details of TDS: Tax deducted by employers (salary), banks (interest), tenants (rent), clients (professional fees), etc. Each entry shows the deductor’s TAN, name, section, amount paid, and tax deducted
• Part A1 — Details of TDS for Form 15G/15H: Income on which no TDS was deducted because the taxpayer submitted a self-declaration (Form 15G for individuals, 15H for senior citizens)
• Part A2 — Details of TDS on sale of immovable property u/s 194-IA / TDS on rent of property u/s 194IB: Property-specific TDS where the buyer or tenant is the deductor
• Part B — Details of TCS: Tax Collected at Source by sellers under Section 206C (e.g., on sale of motor vehicles above ₹10 lakh, foreign remittances under LRS)
• Part C — Details of Tax Paid (other than TDS/TCS): Advance tax instalments and self-assessment tax challans deposited directly by the taxpayer
• Part D — Details of Paid Refund: Income tax refunds issued during the year, with mode and amount
• Part E — Details of SFT Transactions: High-value Specified Financial Transactions reported by banks, mutual funds, registrars (e.g., cash deposits above ₹10 lakh, credit card payments above ₹10 lakh, mutual fund purchases above ₹10 lakh)
• Part F — Details of TDS on sale of immovable property u/s 194-IA (For Buyer of property): Mirror entries for the buyer who deducted TDS at the time of purchase
• Part G — TDS Defaults: Any short-deduction or short-payment defaults flagged by the system

How to Download Form 26AS

Form 26AS is available free of cost on the Income Tax e-filing portal. The download flow:

1. Log in to incometax.gov.in with your PAN, password, and OTP
2. Navigate to e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Form 26AS
3. Click “Confirm” to be redirected to the TRACES portal
4. Select the assessment year and view format (HTML, PDF, or Text)
5. Open or download the statement; password to open the PDF is the PAN in lowercase followed by the date of birth in DDMMYYYY format

For example, if PAN is ABCDE1234F and DOB is 15 August 1990, the password is abcde1234f15081990.

When to Use Form 26AS

Form 26AS is the reconciliation source for several situations:

• Before filing ITR: Verify that every TDS deducted by employers, banks, and clients appears correctly. Mismatches must be sorted out with the deductor before filing
• Form 16 reconciliation: Salary TDS shown on Form 16 Part A should match Part A of Form 26AS exactly. If not, the employer must file a revised Form 24Q
• Refund tracking: Part D shows whether a refund has been issued and the amount
• High-value transaction visibility: Part E surfaces SFT entries the IT Department already knows about — concealing these in the ITR triggers scrutiny
• Loan and visa applications: Form 26AS is widely accepted as evidence of income and tax compliance

Common Mismatches

• PAN typo by deductor: A wrong PAN entered in the TDS return routes the credit to a different (or no) PAN; the rightful taxpayer sees nothing in 26AS
• Late deposit: TDS deducted but deposited late may not reflect by the time the taxpayer files the ITR
• Assessment year confusion: Q4 TDS (Jan — Mar) is reported in the same FY but credit shows in the next AY’s 26AS; this is normal and not an error
• Amount mismatch: Deductor reports a different paid amount than what the taxpayer received (often due to gross vs net confusion)
• Missing entries: If the deductor has not yet filed the relevant quarterly return, 26AS will be incomplete — wait for the return cycle to close

To resolve, the taxpayer must contact the deductor and request a revised TDS return; the IT Department itself does not modify 26AS based on taxpayer requests.

Form 26AS vs AIS vs TIS

Since 2021, the IT Department has launched two newer, more comprehensive statements alongside Form 26AS:

• Annual Information Statement (AIS): A wider statement covering interest, dividend, mutual fund transactions, securities transactions, foreign remittances, GST turnover, and more. It also allows taxpayers to submit feedback if they disagree with an entry
• Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS): A summarised, category-wise version of AIS designed to be the input for ITR pre-filling

Form 26AS continues to be the authoritative tax-credit statement, while AIS is the broader information statement. For ITR filing, taxpayers should reconcile their data against both. The TDS on salary in India guide explains how 26AS interacts with monthly salary TDS.

How Omnivoo Helps with Form 26AS

Omnivoo ensures that every TDS deducted from an employee’s salary is deposited within statutory deadlines and reported accurately in Form 24Q so that it surfaces correctly in the employee’s Form 26AS. When an employee flags a mismatch, Omnivoo’s payroll team reconciles the deduction, files a revised return on TRACES if needed, and confirms the corrected entry is reflected in 26AS — keeping every employee’s tax record clean ahead of ITR filing. For a related vendor-side TDS lookup, see Form 16A.