Tax Filing Is All Set To Start. But First, Check Your Form 26AS Thoroughly!

Don’t you dare to forget to check Form 26AS prior to filing your Income Tax Return. Form 26AS, a consolidated tax statement, is issued to PAN holders. Also referred to as Annual Statement or Tax Credit Statement, it has every tax related details like TDS deducted, Refund issued, TCS collected, etc.  It reveals the amount of your tax acquired by the Government and it is merged from manifold sources such as your salary, pension or interest income.

The Income Tax department has also provided you a method to verify this issue. Now, you can easily verify your tax credit i.e. Form 26AS online and take curative measures if required. This can keep you away from lot of hassle.

Why Checking Form 26AS is Important?

Cross-checking of Form 26AS with Form no. 16 is one of the most primary task to do before you are all set for e-filing of income tax return. At the time of processing Income Tax Return, the Tax authorities provide the tax credit of the sum mirrored in Form 26AS, since there is no need to give in the evidence of TDS / TCS / Self Assessment Tax / Advance Tax together with Income Tax Return. As a result, it is extremely vital to check the amount mirrored in Form 26AS prior to filing your Income Tax Return otherwise you will not get the benefits of TDS deducted and Taxes paid which are not showing in Form 26AS.

 

Importance of Form 26AS

Form 26As must be verified with the appropriate details of TDS certificate i.e. Form 16 or 16A in order to assure that the tax deducted at source on assessee’s income was essentially deposited with the Income Tax Department. The significance of Form 26AS is as follows:

1. This Form serves as a referral document in respect of TDS or TCS, advance tax or self assessment tax deposited to Income Tax Department on your behalf.

2. Earnings can be confirmed from Form 26AS. Before filing of your Income Tax Return make sure that you have incorporated all incomes demonstrated in Form 26AS

3. This Form can be used to verify the sum of refund acquired from Government plus the respective assessment year.

4. While filing of Income Tax Return, you can find your necessary details such as BSR code, amount of deposit, date of deposit, etc. using Form 26AS if your tax receipt is lost.

5. There are several transactions, the fine points of which are received by IT Department via different authorities. These kinds of transactions are mirrored in Annual Information Return i.e Part E of Form 26AS. Prior to filing of Income Tax Return, you need to be sure that such transactions have been taken into account by you.

 

Options to View Form 26AS

1^st Option: Through the e-filing website of Income Tax Department

• First of all, register yourself to view Form 26AS by registering at official Income Tax filing site. The registration is instant and free of cost.
• Once you are logged in click on My Account tab
• There comes an option to View Your Tax Credit Statement i.e. Form 26AS
• After this, it will request you to be redirected to NDSL website where you need to click on the confirm button
• On this page, you can choose the assessment year on the top right hand corner of the page for which you wish to see the details. Just keep in mind that assessment year is 1 year ahead of financial year.

2^nd Option: Through the Net Banking Account.

With the help of net banking provision of different banks you can also view Form 26AS. You need to log in to the net banking account and confirm whether this provision is available or not as approximately 19 to 20 banks have been authorized to show Form 26AS of tax payers. So, Login to your net banking account and confirm if this facility is available.

 

What to check in Form 26AS?

Form 26AS consists of following information and it should be crosschecked with actual transactions:

Tax Deducted at Source: It is the amount which your employer deducted each month from your salary.

Amount Paid: Apart from Tax details, Form 26AS also shows the gross amount payment made by the deductor or payee. The amount so reflected under ‘Amount Paid’ is actually the income accrued to you. So you need to check this field to ensure that your Form 26AS does not contain any income which does not belong to you.

Advance Tax and Self Assessment Tax deposited by the assessee: Tax Payer is required to submit both Advance Tax and Self Assessment Tax to the Income Tax Department as per the Income Tax Act Provisions. Advance Tax is basically a tax liability which tax payer pays in advance. As compared to this, the self assessment tax is the amount of tax which Tax payer assessed after calculating his final liability deducting the TDS and advance tax paid during the year.

Annual Information Return (AIR) transactions: Annual Information Return (AIR) transactions are several high value transactions which took place during the year. The details regarding this have to be furnished by the Tax Payer

The Form is rationalized on regular basis whenever you deposit tax or tax has been deducted (TDS) / tax has been collected at source (TCS) and return has been provided.

 

Reasons for mismatch in Form 26AS

The most important reason for mismatch in TDS truly deducted with the amount mirrored in Form 26AS is because of the errors or mistakes in TDS return which is filed by the Deductor. Many a times, they punch wrong details like PAN No., amount of TDS deducted, wrong Challan details which give arise to difference in the figures of TDS. Other reasons may be non filing of TDS Return by Deductor or non deposit of TDS.

 

Ways to correct TDS mismatch in Form 26AS

In such a case, you just have one option and it is to pursue the deductor of TDS and ask him to find errors because of which TDS values get mismatched in Form 26AS and subsequently, file his/her Revised TDS return.

Now, things have become very easy and you can verify your tax credit status i.e. Form 26AS online and take remedial measures if desirable.

The article has been authored by Abhishek Porwal of mytaxcafe.com, which helps people to e-file their income tax return easily