Rent receipts must carry PAN details

New Delhi: The Income Tax department believes most people issue fake rent receipts and don't declare their actual rent. As such, landlords and their tenants might have to put their PAN details on rent receipts.

Tenants in rented houses should not show fake receipts. That seems to be what the Income Tax department wants tax-payers to be aware of. Rents will be counted as income for landlords and they will have to account for it. That's why the government might ask tenants and owners for PAN details.

Girish Ahuja a tax expert said, “The employer will tally the PAN of both the tenants and the owners."

The government asked tenants for their PAN details in the 2007-08 Returns Form. At present it's optional, but sources say it might be mandatory next year. So, tenants and landlords will have to declare appropriate rent. But salaried employees say, since most landlords don't issue rent receipts they have to produce fake ones.

Ashish a salaried employee said, “They don't issue receipts and hence, this whole thing has no basis."

'It is necessary to make the Rent Control Act more transparent prior to make it mandatory to give PAN details on rent receipts. Only then can such a law function smoothly', experts say.

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