Can your AIS be wrong? Yes, and here is how to check it

Figures in your Annual Information Statement (AIS) can differ from the underlying transaction records you need for your return. The AIS is a summary of reports about you, not a verified record. Banks, depositories, registrars and companies file those reports, and any of them can file a wrong figure. When one does, the AIS shows it, and a return that copies the AIS blindly copies the error.

The good news: many of these errors can be caught using the AIS’s own figures, in about ten minutes, before you file. The department says so itself. Its AIS guidance states that there may be transactions not presently displayed, and that the taxpayer is expected to check all related information and report complete and accurate information in the return.

Where the AIS comes from, and why that matters

Your AIS is assembled by the Income Tax Department from statements filed by reporting entities: your bank reports your interest, your depository and your fund’s registrar report your securities transactions, companies report your dividends. The department compiles. It does not audit each row against your contract notes.

Two consequences follow.

First, the same real-world sale can appear more than once, because two entities each reported it. Second, and less known, a single row can simply be internally inconsistent: the quantity and unit price printed on the row do not multiply to the sale value printed beside them. One of those numbers is wrong, and nothing in the portal will tell you which.

Responsibility, meanwhile, sits with you. The return you file is yours, whatever the AIS said.

A real example, with the figures

This is from a real return prepared this season, details anonymised, figures as they appeared.

The row claimed a ₹3,00,000 sale. Its own quantity multiplied by its own unit price came to ₹1,00,020, and the purchase block independently said the holding cost ₹1,00,000. Three numbers on one statement, and they cannot all be true. Trusting the headline column would have inflated the apparent gain by roughly ₹2,00,000, on a holding that, by the row’s own figures, had barely gained at all.

What that costs in tax depends on the asset’s classification, the holding period, your other gains and the exemption available. The inflation itself is not in doubt. In this case a practising chartered accountant caught the contradiction by hand, which is exactly the kind of cross-check good professionals do. The point of this article is that you can run the same check yourself.

The ten-minute self-check

1. Download your AIS from the e-filing portal (AIS is under the Services menu after you log in). Use the PDF or JSON; both carry the same rows.
2. Go to the securities-sale section. Where a row gives you both a quantity and a unit sale price, multiply them and compare the result with the sale consideration reported on that same row. Not every row carries both, because reporting formats differ by asset type and by reporting entity, and some information is reported in aggregate. Check the rows that do.
3. Flag any material, unexplained mismatch. It means the row disagrees with itself. The arithmetic tells you something is wrong; it does not tell you which of the two figures is right. Do not decide yet, just mark it.
4. Pull the transaction-level source document for each flagged row: the broker contract note, the fund statement, the registrar’s confirmation. Use it to investigate the mismatch rather than picking an AIS figure by assumption. Corporate actions, bonus issues and demergers can all explain an apparent discrepancy.
5. Check the purchase side too. A sale figure can be right while the cost is wrong. A cost of zero on a holding you paid for is the same class of error, and it inflates your gain by the whole purchase price.

What to do if you find one

1. Submit feedback on the row. Every AIS transaction carries a feedback option in the portal. Choose the response that fits (information is not fully correct, information relates to another PAN or year, and so on) and state the correct figure. Feedback creates a record that you disputed the row before filing.
2. Keep the source document. The contract note or statement supporting the correct figure is your evidence. Keep it with your tax records for the year.
3. File with the correct figure. Your return should carry the number the source document supports. The AIS is information, not instruction, and the department’s own guidance says feedback and taxpayer records govern.

This is also the check Klaro runs mechanically on every row. A sale whose own arithmetic contradicts its stated consideration is flagged and withheld rather than guessed at, and you decide which figure stands, with the source document in front of you.

Common questions

Can the AIS really just be wrong?

Yes. It is compiled from third-party reports, and reporting entities make filing errors. The AIS even anticipates this, which is why every row has a feedback mechanism.

If the AIS is wrong, will the department’s systems flag my return?

A mismatch between your return and the AIS can generate a query, which is exactly why you submit feedback on the wrong row and keep the source document. A dispute recorded before filing, backed by a contract note, is a strong position.

Which figure wins: AIS, broker, or registrar?

The document closest to the transaction: the contract note or the registrar’s own statement of the redemption. The AIS is a summary of summaries.

Does this apply to interest and dividends too?

The self-contradiction check is specific to securities rows (quantity times price). But the broader principle, verify AIS figures against source documents, applies to every head.

• Income Tax Department, AIS: Annual Information Statement (structure, reported versus modified value, and the statement that taxpayers are expected to check all related information and report complete and accurate information in the return)
• Income Tax Department, FAQs on AIS (feedback mechanism, consolidated feedback file, no limit on modifying feedback)
• CBDT, Annual Information Statement (feedback where information is incorrect, duplicated, or relates to another person)

General information for AY 2026-27, not advice on your specific facts. Figures in the example are from a real return, anonymised.

Klaro prepares an ITR-2 and ITR-3 computation for individual residents: capital gains, salary, house property and other sources, both regimes side by side. It does not compute business profit or Schedule BP; you declare that figure. It does not handle foreign income and foreign tax credit, unlisted shares or buybacks, and it does not file your return.