Form 26AS (Property)
Form 26AS is the consolidated annual tax statement issued by the Income Tax Department. For property buyers, it is the verification trail that confirms the 1% TDS deducted under Section 194-IA on purchases above Rs 50 lakh has actually reached the government and credited to the seller PAN.
What is Form 26AS?
Form 26AS is a consolidated, PAN-linked tax statement issued by the Income Tax Department of India. It records every rupee of tax that has flowed against your PAN in a financial year: TDS deducted by employers, TDS deducted by property buyers under Section 194-IA, advance tax paid, self-assessment tax, high-value transactions reported by banks, refund history, and SFT (Statement of Financial Transactions) entries. From AY 2020-21 onward, it works in tandem with the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), but 26AS remains the primary proof for tax credit claims.
Why it matters for property buyers
Under Section 194-IA of the Income Tax Act, when you buy any immovable property (other than agricultural land) for Rs 50 lakh or more, you must deduct 1% TDS on the consideration and deposit it via Form 26QB within 30 days from the end of the month of deduction. The deposit must then reflect in the seller Form 26AS as a credit against their PAN. Two failure modes routinely burn buyers and sellers alike: (1) buyer files Form 26QB with the wrong seller PAN, so the credit lands in a stranger account and the seller gets a notice u/s 201; (2) seller refuses to register the sale deed unless 26AS reflects the credit, stalling registration for weeks. For NRI sellers, the rate is much higher — 20% LTCG or 30% STCG plus surcharge and cess under Section 195 — and the only way to reduce it is a Lower Deduction Certificate (Form 13) which, again, is verifiable only through 26AS.
How to verify or calculate it
Log in at incometax.gov.in → e-File → Income Tax Forms → View Form 26AS (this redirects to the TRACES portal). Open Part-F (Details of Tax Deducted at Source on Sale of Immovable Property u/s 194-IA). The 7-digit acknowledgement number from your Form 26QB challan should appear here. Compute TDS as 1% × higher of (sale consideration, stamp duty value) — the “higher of” rule became mandatory from 1 October 2024 via the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024. Pay within 30 days from the end of the month in which TDS was deducted. Late deposit attracts 1.5% per month interest u/s 201(1A), and non-deduction attracts 1% per month plus penalty equal to the tax amount u/s 271C.
How Brickplot uses Form 26AS in its score
Brickplot does not directly score Form 26AS compliance — it is a buyer-side obligation, not a project attribute. However, when our editorial team audits resale-heavy projects, we run eCourts and IT-tribunal searches for Section 201 orders against past sellers. Repeated 26AS mismatches on a project flag downstream encumbrance risk, because unresolved tax demands can attach the property under Section 281 of the IT Act. These signals feed the Legal & Title Cleanliness axis (16% weight) of our 11-axis scoring formula.
Related terms: NRI Property Purchase, Repatriation of Sale Proceeds, Capital Gains Tax, Title Deed.
Related terms
Brickplot verifies form 26as (property) disclosures on every reviewed project as part of the independent 11-axis score. No builder commissions. No editorial override.