What is Form 26AS?
Form 26AS (also called the annual statement) gives you the following details for the associated PAN card:
- Salary Credited and the corresponding TDS
- Interest Credited and corresponding TDS by banks and companies
- Advance tax or self-assessment tax paid
- TDS deducted in case of selling/buying of property of more than 50 lakhs value
- Any high-value transaction done in the year like buying property, shares, mutual funds, etc
- Income tax refund paid if any
How to view 26AS?
There are two ways to view your 26AS
2. You can do it through your net banking of authorized banks (with PAN card correctly linked to the account)
How to view information in Form 26AS?
Once the Form is opened, you have the option to select the Assessment year and the format “View as”. Select the relevant Assessment year and the format and click view.
Select ‘HTML” to view it online and “PDF” to download it.
Password for opening downloaded Form 26AS is the date of birth of PAN holder in the ddmmyyyy format as mentioned in PAN Card. So if your date of birth is January 2, 1975, then your password would be 02011975.
Tax Slab Rate for FY 2017-18 as given below:-
Interpreting From 26AS:
The 26AS is divided into 7 broad sections (A to G). Following are the details for each section.
PART A – Details of Tax Deducted at Source.
This section is most common and has details of Tax deducted by your employer or TDS deducted by banks on interest on Fixed Deposits, etc. TDS deducted by each source is shown in a separate table.
PART A1 – Details of Tax Deducted at Source for 15G / 15H
This section shows details of the income where the tax was not deducted as you had submitted form 15G or 15H. The TDS will always show “0” because you have submitted Form 15G/H for not deducting TDS. It helps in tracking the interest you received.
PART A2 – Details of Tax Deducted at Source on Sale of Immovable Property u/s 194IA (For Seller of Property)
PART B – Details of Tax Collected at Source
This is the tax that is collected by the seller from the buyer on sale of certain goods like liquor, timber, minerals, etc. This would be mainly populated by people involved in such trades.
PART C – Details of Tax Paid (other than TDS or TCS)
This part shows any “Advance Tax or Self Assessment Tax” paid during the financial year. The banks generally upload this information after clearing of the cheque.
Part D – Details of Paid Refund
This part shows any refund paid to you by Income tax department in that financial year
Part E: Details of AIR Transaction
It shows the details of any high-value transactions such as a purchase of property etc. These high-value transactions are reported to income tax department by banks/ Registrar/ Mutual Funds/ companies etc through Annual Information Return (AIR)
PART F – Details of Tax Deducted at Source on Sale of Immovable Property u/s 194IA (For Buyer of Property)
PART G – TDS Defaults (Processing of Statements)
What should be verified from 26AS?
As you can see it’s a long form but is visually easy to understand. The question is what should be verified in this form? The answer is EVERYTHING. Yes, you should verify all the numbers and relevant details present there.
1 Check the name, TAN of the deductor from FORM 16 (salary)/16A (banks)
Check the section for each entry 192 is for salary and 194A is for interest income
Check the status of booking. It should be ‘F’ which means Final. This means that the TDS amount deposited to income tax authorities match with the TDS statement filed by the deductor. In case it's “U” meaning Unmatched, it means there is some issue either with the TDS statement or the amount deposited. You will need to check with the concerned deductor in this case.
What if entries do not match?
As stated above in case someone has deducted TDS but has not submitted or updated it wrongly to the income tax authorities, you might see wrong or missing entries. In that case, you will need to contact that person/company.
- In case your advance tax or self-assessment tax paid does not match, check with your bank.
- In case your Form 16 details do not match consult your employer.
- In case you find some entries missing consult with the relevant entities.
Why you should check 26AS before filing ITR?
Form 26AS can be compared to your resume while applying for any job. The interviewer knows everything mentioned in your resume – Similarly, income tax authorities know about all the information present in 26AS. And as you would not mess up in an interview by not preparing what’s on your resume, similarly you can mess your income tax returns by not verifying the entries in 26AS.
