Chartered accountants advise that once you have received TDS certificates such as Form-16/Form-16A etc., you must make sure that the amount of tax deducted as shown in the TDS certificate is reflected in Form 26AS as well. Apart from TDS certificates and interest certificates, Form 26AS is also one of the important documents required for filing an income tax return (ITR).

Form 26AS is a statement containing details of all the taxes that are deducted during the financial year from your income and deposited against your PAN to the government. Apart from taxes deducted by your employer from your salary or by a bank from interest income, Form 26AS also shows the taxes that are deposited by you as advance tax or self-assessment tax.

As per current income tax laws, if you buy a motor vehicle that costs more than Rs 10 lakh, then the seller is required to collect 'Tax collected at source (TCS)' from the buyer, i.e., you. It is collected at the rate of one percent of the amount paid. The seller will be required to issue you Form 27D and details of such tax collected from you will be reflected in your Form 26AS.

However, it might happen that some tax that has been deducted during FY 2021-22 is not visible in Form 26AS or the amount of tax deducted as shown in Form 26AS does not match with your calculations or the TDS certificates received by you.

Abhishek Soni, CEO, tax2win.in, an ITR filing website says, "As per income tax laws, you are eligible to claim to only that amount of tax deducted from your income which is reflected in Form 26AS. While filing an ITR you can manually enter the tax details as shown in TDS certificates in your ITR form, however, remember tax department is likely to give you credit only for tax as shown in your tax passbook, i.e., Form 26AS."

REASONS FOR ERROR IN FORM 26AS

There are many reasons why there can be errors in Form 26AS. Soni says, "There are several reasons due to which tax credit as seen in Form 26AS might not match with the amount actually deducted as shown in the salary slips. Some of these reasons could be - the amount of tax deducted from salary is not correctly reported by the employer, TDS deduction is reported in the wrong section or the amount deposited with the government as TDS is wrongly mentioned."

However, there can be other reasons as well for the mismatch between the TDS certificates and Form 26AS. Soni says, "If as an employee you have given the wrong PAN to the deductor which can be your employer or bank, then in such cases tax deducted will not be reflected in your Form 26AS. If while filing TDS returns, the deductor, i.e., your employer or bank has mentioned the wrong PAN, then there is bound to be a mismatch between your TDS certificates and Form 26AS."

Practicing chartered accountant Sachin Vasudeva says, "Apart from TDS deducted by your employer or any other deductor such as a bank, mistakes such as quoting wrong assessment year or marking incorrect category of taxes paid while depositing advance tax or self-assessment tax can also lead to mismatch."

Soni says, "In case of sale of property having more than one seller, i.e., joint ownership, it is usually seen that buyer usually deducts the TDS but forgets to deposit against the PAN of the co-owners. This usually leads to a mismatch in the tax credit details."

HOW TO RECTIFY ERRORS IN FORM 26AS?

Rectification of error in Form 26AS depends on the cause of the error.

For instance, if the deductor (employer or bank) has made a mistake while depositing your tax against your PAN with the government, then in such a case, you need to contact your deductor to rectify the mistake.

Vasudeva says, "In cases where TDS has been deducted by the deductor but the transaction is not reflected in your Form 26AS. This could be due to the deductor inadvertently missing out on the transaction while filing the TDS return or filing the wrong particulars of the deductee in the TDS return. In such cases, the individual will have to approach the deductor by asking him to file or to revise (if already filed) the TDS return of the relevant quarter to which the transaction pertains. Once the deductor files the TDS return with correct information of the deductee, the same will automatically appear in Form 26AS of the deductee."

"While depositing your self-assessment tax or advance tax, if you have made any mistake, then the same can be corrected by making an application to his/her jurisdictional assessing officer as the power of correction of challan lies only with the assessing officer. Once the jurisdictional Assessing Officer rectifies the same, the correction will automatically be reflected in Form 26AS", adds Vasudeva.