Annual Information Statement of the Income Tax Department to have Aadhaar Transactions

The Annual Information Statement, also known as the AIS, is a complete perspective of information for a taxpayer that is provided in Form 26AS. Information processing is essential during the AIS preparation process in order to show comprehensive and correct information to the taxpayer.

AIS’s primary goals are as follows:

• Provide complete information to the taxpayer;
• Encourage voluntary compliance and enable seamless return prefiling; and
• Deter non-compliance.

The following are the key features of the new AIS:

• The addition of fresh information (interest, dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions, foreign remittance information etc.)
• Using Data Analytics to populate PAN in non-PAN data for AIS inclusion.
• Data duplication and the creation of a simpler Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) for ease of filing returns (pre-filling will be enabled in a phased manner).
• Taxpayers will be able to provide online feedback on the information provided in AIS, as well as download data in PDF, JSON, and CSV forms.
• The AIS Utility will allow taxpayers to view AIS and provide input when offline.

To populate PAN in Non PAN Transactions, the New AIS will leverage data analytics. Many transactions require individuals to present their Aadhaar card number rather than their PAN. All such transactions will be included in the Income Tax Department’s AIS Statement.

There are currently 9,67,65,990 Individual Registered Users and 41,20,14,753 Total Aadhaar Linked with PAN as of November 12, 2021. This indicates that only 9.6 billion PANs are active and filing income tax returns, compared to 41.20 billion Aadhaar-linked PANs. Numerous people do not provide PAN details and instead offer Aadhaar details for many financial and non-financial activities, such as purchasing property or jewellery; all such transactions would be included in the new AIS.

The government has done an excellent job by integrating Aadhaar to PAN, allowing the government to follow all of your financial and non-financial transactions. The advanced data analytics technologies will assure correct output, and all financial and non-financial transactions will be connected and populated as a result. If there are any high-value translations that are taxable, Aadhaar cards that are linked but are not filing returns will be sent warnings soon.

It is best to file your returns and pay your taxes on time to prevent receiving any alerts in the future, as even simple transactions such as cash deposits in banks will be recorded in AIS.