PAN not linked to Aadhaar? You have one more year now, but free run is over

“In order to mitigate the inconvenience to the taxpayers … a window of opportunity has been provided to the taxpayers upto 31st of March, 2023 to intimate their Aadhaar to the prescribed authority for Aadhaar-PAN linking without facing repercussions,” the apex direct taxes body said in statement late Wednesday. The CBDT has issued a notification to this effect.

Taxpayers will, however, be required to pay a fee of ₹500 up to three months from April 1, 2022, and a fee of ₹1,000 after that.

The PAN of assessees who have not intimated their Aadhaar, will continue to be functional till March 31, 2023, for the procedures under the Act, like furnishing of return of income, processing of refunds, it said.

“A detailed Circular No.7/2022 dated 30.03.2022 has also been issued in this regard,” the board said.

After March 31, 2023, the PAN of taxpayers who fail to intimate their Aadhaar, as required, shall become inoperative and all the consequences under the Act for not furnishing, intimating or quoting the PAN shall apply to such taxpayers. The PAN can be made operative again upon intimation of Aadhaar to the prescribed authority after payment of a prescribed fee, it said.

This is the fourth extension given by the government for individuals to link their Permanent Account Number (PAN) with their biometric ID (Aadhaar).

The government has now made quoting of Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns (ITRs) as well as for obtaining a new PAN.

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

As per updated data till March 5, over 16.65 crore PANs, out of the total about 33 crore, have been linked with Aadhaar.

The earlier deadlines for linking the two databases were July 31, August 31 and December 31, 2017, with the last being March 31 this year.