‘Govt to give 3-6 month for PAN-Aadhaar linkage’

‘Govt to give 3-6 month for PAN-Aadhaar linkage’

The government will give 3-6 months to link the biometric identifier Aadhaar with PAN in case the apex court rules in its favour, after which it may cancel all PANs that have not been linked, a senior official has said.

The cancellation will weed out all duplicate PANs and make benami transactions void, the official said.

The current deadline for linking the 10-digit alphanumeric PAN (Permanent Account Number), issued by the Income Tax Department, with Aadhaar is December 31.

The government has indicated to the Supreme Court that it is willing to extend this deadline to March 31, 2018.

The official said that in the event of the apex court upholding the government position of making linking of PAN with Aadhaar mandatory and agreeing with the proposed deadline, a 3-6 month grace period would be given to allow all taxpayers to do the linking.

As of November, 13.28 crore out of 33 crore PANs have been linked to the 12-digit Aadhaar, he said.

“The linking exercise is aimed at eliminating duplicate PAN cards which are being used by unscrupulous elements to avoid paying due taxes,” the official said. Not linking PAN with Aadhaar even after the grace period will render the PAN invalid, he said.

“We can give 3 to 6-month window after December 31 for the linking,” he said.

Last month, the government told the court, which is hearing petitions against making Aadhaar linking to bank accounts, mobile phone numbers and others mandatory, that it is willing to extend the deadline to March 31, 2018.

Source: TOI