What is the Annual Tax Statement (ATS) ?

The annual tax statement is a list that contains details about all the tax deducted at source (TDS) or tax collected at source (TCS) for a particular permanent account number. This amount may be deducted either by an employer in case of salaried individuals or by bank for fixed deposits, etc.

The ATS will tell you the amount deducted as tax for your PAN in a particular year. So, if tax has been deducted by someone in 2008-09, the letter from TIN will state ATS for Assessment Year 2009-10 (when you pay taxes for income earned between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009).

TIN creates the statement based on the information submitted by the organizations who have deducted tax from the money paid to you. The information contained there has to be verified by you.

What to do with the ATS?

You need to check this document thoroughly and ensure that all the tax paid by you is reflected with an ‘F’ (meaning final) mentioned in the ‘status’ column. The ATS has three parts - the tax deducted at source (TDS) in Part A and the tax collected at source (TCS) in Part B. When you deposit tax in a bank as self- assessment or advance tax via a challan, the same would be mentioned besides the tax entry, using three letters — P for provisional, U for unmatched and F for final. A provisional status means the tax paid has been shown because the organization that deducted your tax mentioned it in its returns. This would turn to final on verification. The details you submit in your returns need to match with the ones submitted by your tax deductor or collector:

Unmatched would mean the deductor has not yet deposited the taxes or has provided incorrect details of tax payment. Sometimes, a final status will not appear if the payment details in the bank don’t match the details of deposit in the TOS or TCS return, or if your employer has not yet submitted the tax cut from your salary.

Why should you check the ATS?

The statement will be referred to by the income-tax department while processing your income tax return. So, if the data provided by you doesn’t match that provided by deductors, then your return won’t be accepted until it is corrected. Only the deductor has the right to correct the ATS data, not the individual on whom the data has been entered. The ATS sent for this assessment year notes, “The statement is being sent to enable you to take up the matter pertaining to any deficiencies in your statement with your deductor at the time of taking the TDS certificate(s) at the end of the financial year. This would also ensure that complete and correct tax credit is available to you at the time of filing of the income-tax return for the assessment year 2009-10.”

Whom to contact in case of queries?

In case you are still have queries on the ATS, you can call 020-272 1 8080 or contact NSDL via fax at 91-20-2721 8081 or email them at reply @nsdl.co.in

Do you have to register to get ATS?