Joint holdings
Reported in full against each holder, not split by share.
Net Worth & Solvency Glossary · Documents
Annual Information Statement (AIS) as an Asset Cross-Check
abbreviation · AIS = Annual Information Statement · one statement per taxpayer per year
Definition
The Annual Information Statement (AIS) is the statement the Income Tax Department makes available to each taxpayer, showing the financial transactions that third parties such as banks, companies, depositories and registrars have reported against the taxpayer's PAN for a year. AIS is the full form.
It shows what the department already knows about you.
Who reports into it
The statement is built from reports the taxpayer never sent
- Banks
- Companies
- Depositories
- Registrars
Each report is filed against your PAN, for the year, by the body that recorded the transaction.
Thorough about what was reported. Silent about anything that was not. That is both its value and its limit.
Meaning
01What the AIS reports back to a taxpayer
The AIS is built from reports the taxpayer never sent. Typical entries include:
- Interest and dividendsInterest credited by banks and dividends paid by companies.
- Shares, securities and fund unitsPurchases and sales of shares, securities and mutual fund units.
- Foreign remittancesMoney sent abroad through the banking channel.
- Property and large cash depositsProperty transactions and large cash deposits reported by the bodies that record them.
- TDS and TCSTax deducted or collected at source.
This statementAIS
Reports transactions, not only tax. Broader, and thorough about what was reported.
The older statementForm 26AS
The older tax-credit statement, narrower, focused on tax deducted, collected and paid.
The Income-tax Act, 2025 applies from 1 April 2026, for tax year 2026-27 onwards. The AIS is provided for under that Act in section 510 (formerly section 285BB).
How to download the AIS and use the income-tax portal is covered by our tax services, not here.
The cross-check
02Using AIS entries to test whether an asset list is complete
For anyone preparing a statement of assets, the AIS is an unusually good completeness check. A client who has forgotten a dormant demat account, a small deposit at a bank they no longer use, or a property sale earlier in the year will often find it listed. Omissions damage a certificate more than valuation differences do, and running the AIS against the asset list surfaces holdings that would otherwise be missed.
A CA uses it this way before signing a net worth certificate signed by a CA, and for income figures before issuing an income certificate from a CA. It also works the other way. An entry the client cannot explain is worth resolving before the certificate is signed, because a lender or a visa office reading the same statement will ask about it.
The test only runs one way, and that limit matters.
In the AIS, missing from the list
A gap to explain
An AIS entry missing from the asset list is a gap to explain before the certificate is signed.
On the list, missing from the AIS
Not, for that reason, in doubt
Property bought years ago, jewellery and some holdings abroad may create no reportable event in the year at all.
Treating the AIS as a full inventory produces both false alarms and false comfort.
Reading it
03Submitting feedback, reading the TIS summary and handling common mismatches
Step 1
The entry
Each AIS entry is a transaction a third party reported against the PAN.
Step 2
Feedback
A taxpayer can give feedback on each entry, marking it as correct, duplicated, belonging to someone else, or otherwise disputed.
Step 3
The TIS summary
Feedback feeds the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), which totals the AIS by category into the figures used to pre-fill a return, showing the value after feedback.
Common mismatches recur:
Gross sale value
Reported where the taxpayer accounts for the gain.
Duplicate reporting
One transaction reported by two intermediaries.
The wrong PAN
Transactions reported against the wrong PAN.
Each is worth clearing, because an unresolved mismatch tends to come back as a query after the year has closed. A mismatch is investigated before it is read as proof that the client withheld something.
Written by Subham Jhunjhunwala · Reviewed by CA Sundram Gupta
Sources: Income Tax Department, Income-tax Act 2025 in force from 1 April 2026. This entry describes Indian practice in general terms.
Need help with a certificate that uses the annual information statement? See our Net Worth Certificate.The certificate for which the AIS is most often run as a completeness check.