ITR filing deadline: With July 31 due date near, how to check Annual Information Statement (AIS) through password

Before filing your Income Tax Return (ITR), it is important to check your Annual Information Statement (AIS). The AIS gives a detailed view of financial information available with the Income Tax Department, including salary, interest income, dividends, capital gains, securities transactions, tax deducted at source (TDS) and other high-value transactions linked to your PAN. Here's a step-by-step guide to access your AIS online.

The AIS stands for Annual Information Statement. Available on the Income Tax Department’s website, the statement shows financial transactions linked to the PAN of a taxpayer for a particular financial year. These details are reported to the department by banks, employers, mutual fund companies, stockbrokers, property registrars and other institutions.

Form 168, or the AIS, is dynamically updated throughout the year as underlying TDS/TCS returns, SFT statements, and other tax payments are filed and processed. It is available in real time in a taxpayer’s account on the Income Tax e-filing portal. There is no fixed filing frequency; updates depend on the reporting timelines of deductors, collectors and other entities.

Chartered accountant Naveen Wadhwa, vice president, Taxmann, explains the following are the steps to access AIS information online:
Step 1: Log in to the Income-tax e-filing website at https://www.incometax.gov.in/ If you are a new user, you must first register on the e-filing portal.
Step 2: After log-in, click on the AIS
Step 3: The next screen provides instructions for the AIS and the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS). The TIS displays category-wise information available in the AIS. It shows the original and revised values (i.e., value processed after the taxpayer’s feedback). The revised values in the TIS are used to pre-fill the return.
Step 4: Click on the next tab of the ‘AIS’. On the redirected screen, two tiles appear - Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) and Annual Information Statement (AIS). Select the relevant financial year from the drop-down and click on the AIS tile to view information.
Step 5: Information available in the AIS is displayed in Parts A and B on the next screen.
Step 6: Information available in the AIS can be downloaded in the CSV, JSON or PDF format.

If you select the PDF format, the downloaded PDF will be password-protected. To open the file, you must enter the combination of the PAN (in lower case) and the date of birth in case of an individual taxpayer or the date of incorporation/formation for the non-individual taxpayer in the format DDMMYYYY without any space.

For example, if the PAN is AAAAA1234A and the date of birth is January 21, 1991, your password will be aaaaa1234a21011991

The Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) is category-wise aggregated information summary for a taxpayer. It shows value processed by system (i.e. value generated after deduplication of information based on pre-defined rules) and value accepted by taxpayer/confirmed by source (i.e., value derived by a taxpayer after considering the taxpayer feedback or source confirmation on taxpayer’s feedback and value processed by system) under each information category (e.g. salary, interest, dividend, etc.). The information accepted by the taxpayer/confirmed by a source in the TIS will be used for pre-filling of return, if applicable.