The Income Tax department has introduced a new facility this financial year 2009-10 (AY 2010-11) for viewing your tax payments made, it is called 'Tax Credit Statement' or PAN Ledger or Form 26AS.

Here we take a closer look at what Form 26As is all about and how you can benefit...

The Tax Credit Statement (Form 26AS) helps taxpayers in:

• Preparing income tax returns
• Verifying details of tax deducted at source (TDS)
• Verifying details of tax collected at source (TCS)
• Verifying details of tax payment made by the taxpayer (advance tax, self-assessment tax, regular assessment tax, etc.)
• Viewing details of tax refunds (if any)

The form helps you verify if the tax payments made by you (such as, TDS deducted from salary, TDS deducted from interest on deposits, etc) are correctly reported to the IT department. This is important to confirm that you receive complete and accurate acknowledgement for tax payments and TDS reported by them in their IT returns.

This facility is available only to e-filers registered on the Department of Income Tax's (DIT) e-filing site or www.tin-nsdl.com (the Tax Information Network (TIN) maintained by National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL)).

The facility provided by both websites is free.

So how do you go about viewing your Form 26As? Given below are the three simple steps to view and download one's Form 26AS through the 'DIT e-filing website'.

Step 1

Register on the DIT e-filing website. Login and click on "My Account".

Under 'My Account', select "View Tax Credit Statement (Form 26AS)".

Step 2

Once you click on the above link, you will be asked to provide your DOB (Date of Birth) for verification purposes.

Step 3

You will be redirected to the NSDL website to view/download Form 26AS (Tax Credit Statement).

Form 26AS has 4 parts:

• Part A: Details of Tax Deducted at Source (TDS)
• Part B: Details of Tax Collected at Source (TCS)
• Part C: Details of Tax Paid by the tax payer (Other than TDS and TCS)
• Part D: Details of Paid Refund 

Note: 
a) You can view the above information from AY 2006-07 to AY 2011-12.                      

b) In case of any mistake/error with regards to tax deposited by the taxpayer through the bank (advance tax or self-assessment tax), one should contact the branch/bank where the advance tax or self-assessment tax was paid. In case of any mistake/error with regards to tax deducted/collected by the bank and others, one should contact the bank/other person who has deducted/collected such tax.

c) Online tax credit statement can also be viewed in 'Hindi' language through registration with www.tin-nsdl.com.

d) Online view of Tax Credit Statement (Form 26AS) of taxpayer is also available to net banking account holders of registered banks for the benefit of the taxpayer at www.tin-nsdl.com.

To provide this facility to netbanking account holders, the bank should be registered with National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).

Note: Below is the list of banks registered with NSDL for providing the 'view' facility of Tax Credit Statement (Form 26AS):

• Citibank NA
• Corporation Bank
• IDBI Bank Limited
• Indian Overseas Bank
• State Bank of India
• Union Bank of India                                                 

In case of specific queries, you may write to ask@incometaxindia.gov.in