Why your AIS doesn't match your IBKR statement
July 2026 · 7 min read
Somewhere between downloading your Annual Information Statement and opening your Interactive Brokers statement, most people have the same moment of alarm: the two documents describe completely different worlds. The AIS knows about a few lakh rupees that left your bank account. It says nothing about the shares that money became, the dividends they paid, or the gains you booked. Nothing is broken. The two documents were never measuring the same thing.
What the AIS actually is
The AIS is a compilation of what Indian reporting entities have told the tax department about you. Banks, Indian brokers and registrars, mutual funds, employers, anyone who deducted or collected tax against your PAN — their filings flow in and become your AIS. It is a mirror of the Indian financial system's view of you.
A US broker sits entirely outside that system. It has no PAN-linked reporting obligation to the Indian department, files no statement here, and deducts no Indian tax. So everything that happens inside the account is invisible to the AIS by construction — not by oversight.
What each document can and can't see
| Fact | In your AIS? | In your IBKR statement? |
|---|---|---|
| Money remitted abroad (LRS) | Yes — reported by the bank | Only as an incoming deposit |
| TCS collected on that remittance | Yes — credited against your PAN | No |
| Shares held at 31 December | No | Yes |
| US dividends and the tax withheld on them | No | Yes |
| Capital gains on sales | No | Yes |
The remittance figure is not income
The single most common misreading is treating the outward-remittance amount in the AIS as something to be taxed. It is your own post-tax capital being moved, not a receipt. If you sent ₹20 lakh abroad and it is sitting in unsold stock, your taxable income from that account may well be a few thousand rupees of dividends and nothing else.
The TCS alongside it runs the other way: it is tax already paid on your behalf. It reduces what you owe, and if you owe less than was collected, it comes back as a refund. It is worth checking that the figure in your AIS matches what your bank actually collected.
What you must report yourself
Because none of it is pre-filled, the entire foreign side of your return is self-reported — and it lands in more than one place:
- Schedule FA — disclosure of the account and every holding, on a calendar-year basis. This is mandatory disclosure, separate from any tax. See Schedule FA for IBKR.
- Schedule CG — capital gains on shares you sold, on the financial year.
- Schedule OS — dividends and interest, also on the financial year.
- Schedule FSI, Schedule TR and Form 67 — to claim credit for the US tax already withheld on your dividends, so the same income isn't taxed twice. See the FTC guide.
Don't read silence as safety
It is tempting to conclude that what the AIS can't see doesn't matter. Information about foreign financial accounts can reach the department through international exchange-of-information arrangements rather than through your AIS, and foreign-asset disclosure carries a penalty regime of its own — which is precisely why Schedule FA exists as a disclosure obligation rather than a tax computation. The mismatch is expected. The omission is not.
So which document do you file from?
Use the AIS for what it is good at: confirming the remittance trail and picking up your TCS credit. Everything else — holdings, dividends, withholding, gains — has to come out of the broker's own records, converted to rupees at the right rate for each amount. That conversion is its own trap; see Rule 115 and the SBI TT buying rate for which rate applies to what.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't my US shares appear in my AIS?
Because the AIS is built from information reported to the Indian tax department by Indian reporting entities — banks, brokers, registrars and employers. A US brokerage account is not one of them, so the shares you hold there, the dividends they pay and the gains you realise never enter that pipeline. Their absence is normal and is not permission to leave them out of your return.
My AIS shows a large outward remittance figure. Is that my income?
No. That figure is the money you sent abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, reported by the bank that processed it. It is a transfer of your own capital, not income, and it is unrelated to what the money later earned. Reporting it as income would overstate your tax.
If it isn't in the AIS, how would anyone know?
Information about foreign financial accounts can reach the department through international exchange-of-information arrangements rather than through your AIS. Absence from the AIS says nothing about what the department knows, and foreign-asset disclosure carries its own penalty regime, so the safe assumption is that the disclosure is expected.
Where does the TCS on my remittance show up?
Tax collected at source on an LRS remittance is deposited against your PAN and appears in your AIS and Form 26AS like any other prepaid tax. It is a credit, not a cost — you set it off against your final liability when you file, or claim it as a refund.