The finance ministry on Saturday extended the deadline to link Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar till 31st December. Earlier, the deadline for linking of PAN with Aadhaar was stipulated as 30th September.
Linking of PAN with Aadhaar was made mandatory by section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, which was inserted by the Finance Act of 2017. The section says that “every person who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number shall, on or after the 1st day of July, 2017, quote Aadhaar number”, in the application for PAN, and in income tax returns.
This means if a person has been allotted PAN as on 1st July 2017, they must link their Aadhaar with their PAN. Failure to do this will lead to cancellation of the PAN. The deadline for linking PAN with Aadhaar has been extended several times earlier. On 31st March this year, the deadline had been fixed as 30th September.
Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a 10-character alphanumeric number issued by the Income Tax department to tax assesses, which includes individuals, companies and other entities that pay tax. On the other hand, Aadhaar is a 12 digit ID issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to resident individuals of India. Government of India has mandated the linkage of both numbers to eliminate fake or multiple PANs held by individuals to evade tax, and decision which has been upheld by the Supreme Court of India.
The linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done in various ways. Those who have registered at the e-filing portal of the income tax department can link their Aadhaar with their PAN on the portal. The linking can also be done by sending a SMS to either 567678 or 56161 phone number. Alternatively, it can also be done manually by filling up a form in a prescribed form and submitting at a PAN service centre. To link both the IDs, the spelling of the name and the date of birth must match exactly. Residents of Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu & Kashmir have been exempted from this mandatory linkage, as Aadhaar has not been issued to all residents of those states due to various reasons. Persons above 80 years of age are also exempted.
