'Don't miss the March 31 deadline': I-T Dept on PAN-Aadhaar linking

The Income Tax Department on Monday issued a public message saying it was "mandatory" to link PAN with Aadhaar and advised people not to "miss" the stipulated deadline of March 31.

The department had last month said Permanent Account Number (PAN) will become "inoperative" if it is not linked with Aadhaar by this date.

"Don't miss the deadline!"

"It is mandatory to link your PAN and Aadhaar before 31st March, 2020. You can do it through Biometric Aadhaar authentication & also by visiting the PAN service centers of NSDL and UTITSL," the department said in the latest post on social media.

In a video, attached with the message on its Twitter handle @IncomeTaxIndia, it said such a linking is for a "beneficial tomorrow".

The video described that there are two ways to complete this task:

1. Send SMS to 567678 or 56161 in the format: UIDPAN12digit Aadhaar>10digitPAN>

2. Through e-filing portal of the department: www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), that frames policy for the I-T department, had extended the deadline for this task for the eighth time on December 30 last year.

The Supreme Court had in September 2019 declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid and held that the biometric ID would remain mandatory for the filing of tax returns and allotment of PAN.

Section 139 AA (2) of the Income Tax Act says that every person having PAN as on July 1, 2017, and is eligible to obtain Aadhaar, must intimate his Aadhaar number to tax authorities.

Aadhaar is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to a resident of India and PAN is a 10-digit alphanumeric number allotted by the I-T department to a person, firm or entity. As per official data updated till January 27, over 30.75 crore PANs have been linked to Aadhaar.

At that time, 17.58 crore PANs were yet to be linked with the 12-digit biometric ID.

The CBDT had also issued a notification amending I-T rules and inserted Rule 114AAA that stipulates the "manner of making permanent account number inoperative" for those who do not link the two by March 31.

The notification said persons whose PANs become inoperative shall be liable for all the consequences under the I-T Act for not furnishing, intimating or quoting PAN.

For those linking PAN with Aadhaar after March 31, 2020, the I-T department had said it shall "become operative from the date of intimation of Aadhaar number".