Now your form 26AS will not just have information about total income tax paid or refund received, but also about pending and completed proceedings under Income Tax Act. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified the new version of forms.

The new form will come into effect from June 1, 2020.

Form 26AS is an annual consolidated income tax credit statement. It helps the taxpayer to ascertain that the tax deducted and the advance tax paid during the year match with the tax deposited as per the tax department’s records.

Now, one can directly import the Form 26AS information, while filing Income Tax Returns. This Form can directly be accessed through net banking facility or through e filing website of the Income Tax Department (https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in).

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for 2020-21 proposed to rationalise the provision regarding uploading of Form 26AS so as to include all the prescribed information. Accordingly, a new form has been notified. The new form will have information relating to tax deducted or collected at source, specified financial transaction, payment of taxes, demand and refund, pending proceedings and information relating to completed proceedings. Information related with application of PAN or PAN-Aadhaar linkage will also be made available.

According to CBDT’s notification dated May 28, all these information to be uploaded by the Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems) or the Director General of Income-tax (Systems) or any person authorised by him within three months from the end of the month in which the information is received.

The notification has omitted Rule 31AB of the Income Tax Rules 1962 which talks about annual statement of tax deducted or collected or paid while adding one more section after rule 114H (deals with due diligence requirement.

Rakesh Nangia, Chairman of Nangia Andersen Consulting said that the Form 26AS in its new Avatar will help both taxpayers as well as tax authorities in assessing a taxpayer’s profile and bring better flow of information between taxpayer and the tax authorities.

With all the information/details available at one place, it will also assist tax authorities doing e-Assessment and having no/limited interaction with taxpayers, as tax authorities will be able to easily compare information available in Form 26AS vis-a-vis information reported by taxpayer in ITR and any mismatch may be easily flagged by the systems to tax authorities.

“It will also assist the taxpayers to identify and take corrective action, in case any incorrect information/ detail is reported in Form 26AS,” he said

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