Filing ITR too early may cause AIS mismatches, refund delays, and tax notices.
Jasmine | May 25, 2026 |
Why Filing Your ITR Before June 15 May Lead to Tax Notices and Mismatches
The Income Tax Department has started the ITR filing season for AY 2026-27 by releasing the ITR-1 and ITR-4 filing utilities. Many taxpayers have already started to prepare for the filing just to avoid the last-minute rush.
Over the past few years, income return filing has evolved into a data-driven compliance exercise.
Nowadays, income tax returns are continuously matched with data flowing from employers, banks, financial institutions, registrars, mutual funds, brokers, and multiple reporting entities through TDS statements and SFT reporting. This is also why filing a return early can create problems.
The release of ITR filing utilities does not mean that all tax data is updated. Many taxpayers often overlook the disclaimer to AIS, Form 26AS, and prefilled ITR data.
At the start of the filing season, several important statutory filings relating to the last quarter of FY 2025-26, relevant to AY 2026-27, are still pending. So, the Annual Information Statement (AIS), Form 26AS, and prefilled return data may not yet reflect the complete financial picture.
This also becomes important for salaried taxpayers who also earn other taxable income such as rental income, interest income, professional receipts, capital gains, and dividend income.
In such situations, filing returns early may result in incomplete disclosure of income, reporting mismatches, or denial of tax credit.
Taxpayers often overlook one of the most important aspects, which is that the reporting cycle itself continues well beyond the release of the ITR utilities.
(1) Salary TDS reporting is still pending
Employers must file quarterly salary TDS statements for the quarter ended March 2026 in Form 24Q by May 31, 2026. Until these statements are filed and processed:
(2) Non-salary TDS data may also remain incomplete
This issue also applies to non-salary income, as banks and other deductors must submit TDS details through form 26Q for the March 2026 quarter by May 31, 2026.
If these files are uncompleted other taxable receipts and related TDS credits may not reflect correctly.
This can create inconsistencies between the return filed by the taxpayer and the information reflected in AIS and Form 26AS based on TDS statements filed with the Income Tax Department.
Another important consideration is that Form 16 and Form 16A are issued only after the TDS reporting process is completed.
Under rule 31, employers have to provide Form 16 by June 15, 2026. Deductors have to provide Form 16A certificates for non-salary TDS by mid-June.
These documents are important because they help taxpayers to cross-check details such as TDS credits, AIS entries, Form 26AS information, income figures and tax deductions.
The details reported through Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) can substantially alter or update the information displayed in your Annual Information Statement (AIS).
Specified entities must report high-value transactions through SFT by May 31, 2026, which includes:
AIS will not fully capture the taxpayer’s reportable financial activities until these filings are complete. This is important as tax authorities now rely heavily on data analytics and automated mismatch detection.
Many taxpayers today are only focused on filing their ITR too early before the due date. An incorrectly filed return may lead to
Taxpayers usually spend more time correcting early-filed returns, but delaying filing beyond the due date can also lead to loss of benefits like changing the tax regime.
Tax filing has now changed a lot from the past few years. Previously, return filing depended on taxpayer disclosures. Now, Tax filing has shifted from self-reporting to data-based verification, making reconciliation of the following records an important part of ITR filing:
For most taxpayers, a more smarter way could be to wait until:
In many of the cases, AIS data becomes more reliable during June and July.
The release of ITR utilities marks the start of the filing season, but taxpayers should focus on accurate filing and proper AIS reconciliation instead of rushing to file early.
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