Income tax dept revises Form 26AS; now includes real estate, share transaction details

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

The income tax department on Thursday notified the revised Form 26AS, containing details of tax collected or deducted at source which will now include information pertaining to property and share transactions. With this, Form 26AS has now been revamped to an 'Annual Information Statement' which apart from the TDS/ TCS details, shall now contain comprehensive information relating specified financial transactions, payment of taxes, demand/ refund and pending/completed proceedings undertaken by a taxpayer in a particular financial year that has to be mentioned in the income tax returns.

To implement this, the Budget 2020-21 had introduced a new Section 285BB in the Income Tax Act. The revamped Form 26AS will now come into effect from June 1, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said. Form 26AS is an annual consolidated tax statement that can be accessed from the income-tax website by taxpayers using their Permanent Account Number (PAN).

Nangia Andersen Consulting Chairman Rakesh Nangia said the Form 26AS in its new avatar seeks to provide much more comprehensive information regarding taxes paid by a taxpayer, details of pending as well as completed income tax proceedings, status of income tax demand and refund along with details of specified financial transactions undertaken by taxpayer during a particular financial year such as share purchase and property purchase in a single form/ statement.

"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," Nangia said.

It will also assist the taxpayers to identify and take corrective action, in case any incorrect information/ detail is reported in Form 26AS, he added. Amit Maheshwari, Partner, AKM Global, said, "The Form 26AS has been made more comprehensive pursuant to the announcements made earlier on several occasions. It would also include information about financial transactions carried out by the taxpayer and would further ease the tax filing process as much of the information would be extracted from this only."

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