As a responsible citizen, you are paying income tax due to the government. Your employer deducts the income tax from your salary and pays it to the government. Or you pay advance tax or self assessment tax. Your bank is deducting tax from the interest paid to you. But how to confirm that all these tax deducted/paid is credited against your account? Here comes Form 26AS which will help you in this area.
What is Form 26AS?
Form 26AS is a consolidated tax credit statement, where you can see details of all income tax deducted/paid by you and credited against your Permanent Account Number (PAN).
What are the data available from Form 26AS?
There are 5 parts in the Form 26AS. They are:
- Part A: Details of Tax Deducted at Source – From here, you will get the details of all tax deductions made by your employer/bank and credited against your PAN. It will give the details of the deductor, section under which the deduction is made, date of credit, amount of credit etc.
- Part B: This section gives details of tax collected from you by the seller of goods and remitted to the government. It will contain details of the deductor, section under which the deduction is done, date of credit, amount of credit etc.
- Part C: This section gives details of tax paid by you directly like advance tax, self assessment tax. It gives date of payment, challan number etc.
- Here, you can see details of tax refund made to you in the year, if any. This contains the amount of refund, mode of refund and date of refund.
- Here you will see the transaction reported under Annual Information Report (AIR). High value transactions in Shares, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Payments towards Credit Cards, High Value Purchase of Real Estate etc will be reported here.
In what way is Form 26AS useful to you?
This statement can be used to confirm that the tax deducted from your salary is credited against your PAN. Also, you can check, whether the tax deducted by the bank is correctly accounted for against your PAN number. If the employer/bank makes any mistakes in filing their Return, the amount deducted may not reflect against your PAN. By viewing this statement, you can point out any omissions and get it rectified.
How to download Form 26AS?
There are many ways, where you can download the Form 26AS.
- From your Bank website
If you have updated the PAN in your bank account and have registered for the netbanking facility of the bank, you can download the Form 26AS from the website of the bank. It will be mentioned as Tax Credit statement in the bank menu. Leading banks like SBI, ICICI and HDFC etc. offers this facility through online.
- From Income Tax website
You can get Form 26AS from the website www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in
You have to register in this site using your PAN. After registration, you can login and download Form 26AS from My Account Section.
- From the TRACES website
TRACES is a web-based application of the Tax Department that provides an interface to all stakeholders associated with TDS administration. It enables viewing of Challan Status, Justification Report and Form 16 / 16A as well as viewing of annual tax credit statements (Form 26AS).
You have to register in this site www.tdscpc.gov.in/en/home.html. After registering your details, you will get an activation mail to your registered email address. You have to click on the link to activate the registration. After that, you can login and download Form 26AS.
When to verify Form 26AS?
The TDS data is uploaded in Form 26AS on a quarterly basis. You may check your Form 26AS on a quarterly basis and see the discrepancy, if any. Annual Information Report also has to be analysed to see whether any of your high value transaction is appearing there. In that case, ensure that the tax obligation is met with to avoid the tax notice in future.
Very Grateful information.