The Income Tax Department on Sunday said taxpayers can now access the new Annual Information Statement (AIS), which includes additional categories of information like interest, dividends, securities and MF transactions, and remittances from abroad, on the e-filing portal.

The I-T department had last month expanded the list of high-value financial transactions, which would be available to taxpayers in their Form 26AS by including details of mutual fund (MF) purchases, foreign remittances.

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).

"AIS provides ease of access! It can be accessed now on the e-filing portal & downloaded easily in downloadable formats of PDF, CSV & JSON (machine-readable format). Click on link 'AIS' under 'Services' tab on http://incometax.gov.in," the I-T department tweeted.

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AIS enables a taxpayer to see and verify taxpayer info available with taxmen, provide feedback in case of discrepancies, view/update the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) used for pre-filling of ITR.

The Budget 2020-21 had introduced a new Section 285BB in the Income Tax Act, to revamp Form 26AS to an 'Annual Information Statement' which apart from the TDS/ TCS details, would contain comprehensive information relating to 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.

Following that, in May last year, the I-T department had notified the revised Form 26AS, including information on high-value financial transactions undertaken during a financial year, a move which also facilitated voluntary compliance and ease of e-filing of I-T returns.