How to Read Your AIS (Annual Information Statement) Before You File ITR

You open the income tax portal to file your ITR. It pre-fills a chunk of your income automatically. You assume it's correct and move on. Three months later, a notice arrives: your declared turnover doesn't match what your marketplace and your own GST filings reported to the department. Now you're explaining a mismatch you didn't know existed — instead of fixing it in five minutes before you filed.

This is what AIS is for. Most sellers have heard the acronym. Very few actually open it before filing. Here's what it is, what to check, and how to fix what's wrong — before July 31.

AIS, TIS, and Form 26AS — What Each One Actually Shows

These three sit on the same portal and get confused constantly.

Form 26AS is the oldest and narrowest — it shows tax deducted (TDS) or collected (TCS) on your behalf, plus a handful of high-value transactions (large cash deposits, property purchases). If you've only ever checked 26AS, you've been looking at a fraction of what the department knows.

AIS (Annual Information Statement) is the full picture. It pulls data from banks, marketplaces, mutual fund registrars, stock exchanges, and — critically for e-commerce sellers — GSTN. It includes:

• TDS and TCS entries (Section 194O marketplace TDS, Section 206C(1H) TCS)
• GST turnover as reported by GSTN
• Savings account and fixed deposit interest
• Dividend income
• Mutual fund and stock purchase/sale transactions
• Foreign remittances (Form 15CA/15CC based)
• Off-market share transfers

TIS (Taxpayer Information Summary) is a processed, cleaned-up version of AIS, organised by income category. This is what actually auto-populates into your ITR form. Think of AIS as the raw ledger and TIS as the summary your accountant would hand you.

The practical rule: check TIS first for the numbers, check AIS if something in TIS looks wrong and you need the underlying transaction detail to figure out why.

Why This Matters More for E-commerce Sellers Than Most Taxpayers

A salaried person's AIS is usually short — one employer's TDS, some bank interest, maybe a mutual fund SIP. An e-commerce seller's AIS has more moving parts, and more room for mismatches:

GST turnover vs declared business turnover. GSTN reports your GSTR-3B/GSTR-1 turnover to the income tax department. If you file GST quarterly under QRMP, or if there's a timing gap between when you raised an invoice and when it reflects in your GST return, the AIS turnover figure and your actual ITR turnover figure can diverge — even when nothing is actually wrong. This is the single most common AIS flag we see among sellers.

Section 194O TDS not matching payout records. Amazon, Flipkart, and Meesho deduct 1% TDS under Section 194O on your gross sales value, not your net payout. If you've been reconciling against your bank credits instead of gross sales, your own numbers and AIS won't match. (Full detail on this in our TDS credit claiming guide.)

TCS entries appearing separately from TDS. Marketplaces also collect TCS under GST law (1% on net taxable supplies) — this shows up as a GST credit, not an income tax credit, but sellers sometimes confuse the two AIS entries or miss claiming one of them. See our TCS refund guide for the GST-side claim process.

Bank interest across multiple accounts. Sellers running a business current account plus a personal savings account plus a marketplace-linked account often have interest income scattered across 3-4 entries that need to be added up and declared together — AIS lists them individually.

How to Download and Read Your AIS: Step by Step

1. Log in to incometax.gov.in with your PAN and password.
2. Go to Services → Annual Information Statement (AIS). This opens a new AIS portal tab.
3. You'll see two tabs: TIS and AIS. Start with TIS — it groups everything by category (salary, business receipts, interest, dividends, etc.) and shows both the "reported value" and "processed value" (after your feedback, if any).
4. Switch to AIS to see the transaction-level detail — every individual TDS deduction, every bank interest credit, every mutual fund transaction, each with the reporting entity's name.
5. Cross-check the TDS/TCS Information section against your own marketplace payout summary and GSTR filings for the year.
6. Check the "Other Information" section — this is where GST turnover, foreign remittances, and a few other non-standard entries live.
7. For anything that looks wrong, click the entry and use the feedback option (see below).

How to Raise Feedback on an Incorrect AIS Entry

Click on any AIS entry and you'll see an "Optional" feedback button. You can select from reasons including:

• Information is correct
• Income is not taxable
• Information is not fully correct
• Information relates to a different PAN/year
• Information is duplicate/included in another entry
• Information is denied

Once submitted, the reporting entity (bank, marketplace, GSTN) is notified, and your TIS updates to show both the original and revised value. This doesn't guarantee the source will correct it immediately — but it creates a documented record that you flagged the discrepancy before filing, which matters if the mismatch is ever questioned later.

Do this before you file, not after. A feedback entry submitted proactively looks very different from an explanation offered only after a scrutiny notice arrives.

What to Do With Your Reconciled Numbers

Once your AIS and TIS are clean, use the reconciled figures — not the raw pre-filled defaults — when you declare income in your ITR. If you're still deciding which form applies to you, our ITR-3 vs ITR-4 quiz takes two minutes and tells you exactly which one to use. For the full filing process, deductions, and TDS/TCS credit claims, see our complete ITR filing guide for e-commerce sellers.

If your AIS shows income from multiple sources — business, capital gains, F&O, rental — it's worth having this reviewed by a CA before you file rather than after a notice arrives. Get GST and tax filing help →