Tax Law
Navigating Form 26AS & AIS Reconciliations
2 October 2026
By Atharva Lekhankan
Last reviewed 2 October 2026
5 min read
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Home / Blog / Form 26AS & AIS Reconciliation
What Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement are, why they disagree with each other, and the order to reconcile them in so you are not chasing figures in April.
Every year, a large share of income tax notices that reach individuals begin life as a number that did not add up. Someone deducted tax that never reached their account, a bank reported interest under the wrong PAN, or a refund was claimed on a return that was filed before the credit actually posted. Most of these are correctable. Almost none of them correct themselves.
This guide sets out what Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement actually are, why they disagree with each other, and the order you should work through them so you are not chasing your own tail in April.
Form 26AS is an annual certificate issued to you showing the tax deducted at source, and any tax collected at source, during the financial year. Banks, companies and other deductors are required to issue it. It also reports the tax actually deposited against that deduction.
The practical point is that 26AS proves two separate things: that someone said they deducted tax, and that the money was actually paid to the government. Those two facts can and do diverge, and the gap between them is where most problems live.
The Annual Information Statement, introduced under section 18(4) of the Income-tax Act, is broader. Where 26AS covers only tax deducted at source, the AIS reports specified transactions regardless of whether any tax was deducted on them.
Typical entries include interest from banks and post offices, dividend income, proceeds from the sale of securities, and rent received. This is why someone who has never had a salary or a Form 16 can still receive an AIS and, in some cases, a notice.
The distinction in one line
If money was deducted before it reached you, it should be in your 26AS. If money reached you and only later was it noticed, it is likely to be in your AIS.
In our experience the same handful of problems account for the large majority of queries we see:
Do not start with the return. Start with the sources, then build up. In practice:
First, a refund claimed but not received is not a query to the bank. Refunds are processed by the department and can take considerably longer than a claim for a smaller sum. If a large refund is unusually slow, it is usually sitting at a verification stage rather than lost.
Second, correct the cause rather than the symptom. Adding an unexplained amount to your return to make the figures agree creates a new discrepancy next year, and the one before that is still on record.
Please read this as general information
Tax rules, rates and deadlines change, and this article was written in good faith but is not advice for your specific case. Before you act on any of it, please check the current position with your tax adviser or with us. We will happily look at your particular situation.
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