Govt makes mandatory linking of existing Aadhaar with PAN

The rule will come into effect from July 1.

The Central Government on Wednesday made it mandatory quoting of Aadhaar number or enrolment ID to apply for PAN.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley through an amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18 had made Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and provided for linking of PAN with Aadhaar to check tax evasion through use of multiple PAN cards.

The revenue department said "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)".

Besides, it entrusted principal DGIT (systems) or DGIT (systems) with specifying the formats and standards along with procedure for verification of documents filed with PAN application or intimation of Aadhaar number.

The rules will come into force from July 1, 2017, the revenue department said while amending Rule 114 of the I-T Act, which deals in application for allotment of PAN. As many as 2.07 crore taxpayers have already linked their Aadhaar with PAN.

Why? According to government, Aadhaar-enabled biometric identification will help check instances of multiple PANs and also keep a tab on tax evaders.

In effect, those who possess an Aadhaar card must link it to their Permanent Account Number(PAN) card and those who have enrolled and not yet got their Aadhaar card are also exempted from mandatory linkage and the penalising invalidation of their PANs if they don't link it.

The rule will come into effect from July 1, reports PTI. The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to pass any interim order against the Centre's notification making Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various social welfare schemes.

The bench referred to the June 9 judgement passed by the apex court in which it had upheld the validity of an Income Tax Act provision making Aadhaar mandatory for allotment of PAN cards and filing of tax returns, but had put a partial stay on its implementation till a Constitution bench addressed the issue of right to privacy.

(With agency inputs)