PAN-Aadhaar Linkage: Govt Extends the Due Date to December

PAN - Finance - Taxscan

All the tax payers who are not linked their aadhaar number with their Permanent Account Number (PAN) can wait till December 31st as the Income Tax Department has extended the due date.

This is a huge relief to those who had filed their Income Tax Returns (ITR) by the due date of August 5, 2017 but were not able to link their PAN with Aadhaar by August 31, 2017.

Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act mandates linking of Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of income tax returns and making application for allotment of PAN (Permanent Account Number) with effect from July 1 2017.

As per the provision, non-enrolment of Aadhaar by July 2017 would render the PAN of the defaulting individual invalid, attracting penalty proceedings under the Income Tax Rules.

The provision has been challenged before the Supreme Court through various petitions contending that the new provision “compelling” tax payers to link their Aadhaar Card to PAN would amount to violation of right to privacy.

Earlier, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court had upheld the validity of the provision since the primary purpose of introducing this provision was to take care of the problem of multiple PAN cards obtained in fictitious names.

The deadline for filing ITR was extended because many taxpayers were unable to file their ITRs as they could not link Aadhaar with PAN. The tax department had received several complaints from taxpayers expressing their inability to link the two identification numbers as their names in the Aadhaar and PAN databases were different.

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