This system is valid for a limited time for residents of India only and for those individuals who are applying to receive their PAN for the first time
The Income Tax (IT) department has introduced a new system where resident individuals who do not have a Permanent Account Number (PAN) card will be instantly allotted an e-PAN on the basis of their Aadhaar card.
The facility is available on first-come-first-serve basis
Speaking about this new service, a senior official of the IT department stated that this decision has been made after noticing that several people had applied to acquire PAN card for financial and tax matters. “This facility is free of cost and instant allotment of e-PAN is available only for a limited period on first-come-first-serve basis for valid Aadhaar holders,” IT department said in a recent advisory.
Customers must remember that those who already have a PAN card and do not have an ‘active mobile number’ linked to their Aadhaar card, are not eligible to obtain an e-PAN. This new service can be availed from the online portal of the IT department and once done, a fresh PAN will be allocated as per the one-time password (OTP) sent to the mobile number. The advisory said that the new PAN will have all the details as that of an individual’s Aadhaar card – the same name, date of birth (DOB), gender, mobile number and address.
The advisory added, “The e-PAN facility is only for resident individuals and not for Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), firms, trusts and companies etc.” The senior official of the IT department said that after the allocation of the PAN to an individual via his/her Aadhaar-based verification service within a few seconds, he/she will receive the PAN card by post in some time. He added, “This is one more initiative that leverages the Aadhaar database to quickly disburse/allot a government service.”
Deadline to link PAN-Aadhaar has been extended till March 31, 2019
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) that is responsible for creating policies for the IT department announced on July 1 that the deadline to link PAN-Aadhaar has been extended for the fifth time to March 31, 2019. According to Section 139 AA(2) of the Income Tax Act, every individual having PAN as on July 1, 2017 and eligible to acquire Aadhaar, must intimate his/her Aadhaar number to the tax authorities. While Aadhaar is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to a resident of India, PAN is a 10-digit alphanumeric number assigned by the IT department to a person, firm or entity.
