Form 26AS is broadly a tax statement that contains all the details regarding total tax paid by an employee in a financial year. It contains important information related to the employer like TAN and PAN details and employee’s salary breakup, is an equally crucial document needed for filing of the Income Tax Return (ITR). Other information includes details about total tax deposited with the government treasury.
Suppose you work as a freelance writer. Your employer, at the time of releasing your remuneration subtracts Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) say at 10%. In such a scenario, keeping track of every TDS deduction from your payment and deposited with the Income Tax Department is not an easy task. It is in this case that Form 26AS comes to your rescue as it has all the details of payment received and TDS deducted.
As per standard rule, all companies are meant to provide with an Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF) account. Now, if you decide to withdraw the money from the account without completing 5 years in the organisation, it will be credited after a 10% TDS deduction. This deduction also gets reflected in Form 26AS and you will have to show it in the ‘Income from other sources’ section in your ITR.
If you are running a small business like a bus or train ticket booking sub-agency, you will get an income and earn a commission on that. On this commission, your parent agency will subtract TDS. Keeping track or remembering them will be a Herculean task. Here also Form 26AS comes to your rescue. You can refer to it at the time of filing your ITR. These incomes you can mention in ‘Income from other sources’ column. Interest income from bank deposits also comes under this section.
Any taxpayer can easily access a Form 26AS. You just need to log on to the Income Tax Department’s e-filing website with your PAN details and password. After logging in, you will get to see on your screen different heads. Under ‘My Account’ section, click on ‘View Form 26AS (Tax Credit)’ drop down button. You will be redirected to the TDS-CPC (TRACES) website to view Form 26AS. Here you can view ‘Tax Credit (Form 26AS)’.
