Govt Makes Aadhar Mandatory To Link It With PAN:- The Government has made it mandatory to link existing Aadhaar numbers with the Permanent Account Number (PAN) of tax payers, effective from July 1.
Improving the income tax rules and notifying the same, the government has made quoting of the 12-digit biometric Aadhaar or the enrollment ID a must at the time of application of PAN. Through an amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18, Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley for filing of income tax returns, has made Aadhaar mandatory and to check the tax evasion through use of multiple PAN cards, provided linking of PAN with Aadhaar.
“Every person who has been allotted PAN as on July 1, 2017, and who in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (2) of section 139AA is required to intimate his Aadhaar number, shall intimate his Aadhaar number to the principal director general of income tax (systems) or DGIT (systems),” said the revenue department. Besides this, along with procedure for verification of documents filed with PAN application or intimation of Aadhaar number, with specifying the formats, standards principal DGIT (systems) or DGIT (systems) were passed.
The revenue department said while amending Rule 114 of the I-T Act, which deals in application for allotment of PAN, from July 1, 2017 the rules will come into force. Already, as many as 2.07 crore taxpayers have already linked their Aadhaar with PAN. There are more than 25 crore PAN card holders, in the country while Aadhaar has been issued to 111 crore people.
The Supreme Court, earlier this month, had upheld the validity of an I-T Act provision making Aadhaar mandatory for allotment of PAN cards and ITR filing. But, a partial stay had been implemented, till a Constitution bench addressed the issue of right to privacy. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), consistent to this, said the Aadhaar-PAN linking is a “must” for filing of income tax returns (ITR) and obtaining PAN from July 1.
Aadhaar, the biometric authentication is issued by the UIDAI, while the IT department allots the 10-digit alphanumeric number, PAN to individuals and entities.
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