Section 510 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 — Annual Information Statement (AIS) Explained

In plain language

What Section 510 actually says

Section 510 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 is the legal backbone of the Annual Information Statement (AIS). In plain words, it obliges the tax department to hand every taxpayer a single consolidated statement of the financial information it already holds against their PAN. It has just two sub-sections:

• Section 510(1): The prescribed income-tax authority (or a person authorised by it) shall upload into the registered account of the assessee an annual information statement, in the form, manner and time prescribed, containing the information in the possession of an income-tax authority.
• Section 510(2): A "registered account" means the electronic filing (e-filing) account that the assessee has registered on the web portal designated by the authority.

The prescribed form is Form 168 and the corresponding rule is Rule 245 of the new Income-tax Rules, 2026. Section 510 replaces Section 285BB read with Rule 114-I of the old Income-tax Act, 1961. It takes effect from 1 April 2026.

Who it applies to

• Every PAN holder against whom the department has received financial information — salaried employees, business owners, investors, senior citizens, NRIs and even people who do not file a return.
• You do not "apply" for the AIS. It is auto-generated and pushed into your e-filing account, so the duty here sits on the department, not on you.
• The reporting entities that feed data into it — banks, employers, mutual funds, registrars, stock exchanges, depositories, GSTN, sub-registrars — report under the separate SFT machinery (old Section 285BA).

What information the AIS contains

The AIS is far wider than the old Form 26AS. It aggregates roughly 15+ categories of information linked to your PAN:

• TDS and TCS deducted or collected on your income.
• Salary reported by employers and interest from banks, post offices and cooperative societies.
• Dividends, capital gains on securities and mutual funds, and share/MF purchase-sale data from depositories.
• Immovable property purchase and sale registered with sub-registrars.
• Specified Financial Transactions (SFT) — high-value cash deposits, fixed deposits, credit-card spends, etc.
• Foreign remittances (LRS/TCS), AEOI/FATCA/CRS foreign-account data, and GST turnover.
• Tax payments (advance and self-assessment), refunds, demands, and pending/completed proceedings.

The feedback mechanism — a key improvement

Unlike the old Form 26AS, the AIS lets you respond to every line item. Against any entry you can mark it as: Information is correct; Not fully correct; Duplicate; Relates to other PAN/year; Income not taxable; or Information is denied. Your feedback flows into the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) — a category-wise rolled-up figure (total salary, total interest, total capital gains, etc.) that is used to pre-fill your ITR.

Upload timeline and interaction with other provisions

• Information must generally be uploaded to your registered account within 90 days from the end of the month in which it is received. Because reporting entities file at different times, the AIS updates dynamically through the year.
• It works hand-in-hand with the SFT reporting provisions (old Section 285BA) that make banks and others report, and with the return-filing sections because AIS/TIS data pre-fills your ITR.
• A mismatch between your ITR and your AIS is the most common trigger for a notice or defective-return intimation, so reconciling the two before filing is essential.

Practical implications for you

• Always download your AIS and TIS before filing and reconcile them with Form 16, bank statements, broker P&L and interest certificates.
• Do not blindly copy AIS figures — capital gains and interest often appear gross or duplicated; use feedback to correct genuine errors.
• Remember the AIS is informational, not a demand. It does not by itself create tax liability, but ignoring it invites scrutiny.