Saturday, 2 September 2017

Aadhaar card link with PAN card: Big relief for taxpayers, last date for Aadhaar-PAN linking extended to December 31

By: | New Delhi : August 31, 2017

Aadhaar card link with PAN card: Giving a big relief to taxpayers, the Central government on Thursday extended by four months the deadline for Aadhaar-PAN linking. Now taxpayers — who had filed their income tax return on time, but had failed to link their Aadhaar number with the PAN card for some unavoidable reasons or mismatch in the data of two cards – can link the two by December 31, 2017. Earlier on Wednesday, PTI had in a report said that “the government will decide tomorrow if the deadline for PAN-Aadhaar linking will be extended.”
It may be noted that the Centre had on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that they would extend till December 31 the deadline to furnish Aadhaar for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes.

However, taxpayers were supposed to link their Aadhaar number with the PAN card till August 31, failing which their income tax return was not to be processed. The Income Tax Department had said that “ITR will not be taken up for processing u/s 143(I) of the Income Tax Act, until the PAN is linked to Aadhaar. Those who are required to link and have not done, complete the same by 31-08-2017.”

This means that the Income Tax Department was in no mood to extend the deadline of 31st August for linking Aadhaar with PAN. Although there was some confusion in view of the recent Supreme Court verdict on privacy, however, UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan had clarified that “taxpayers will have to link their PAN with Aadhaar by the stipulated deadline, which is 31st August, as the Supreme Court verdict on privacy has no bearing on the requirement.”

It is true that the deadline to link Aadhaar for availing social schemes had been extended on Wednesday till December 31 this year. However, the government had not taken any decision on extending the deadline for Aadhaar-PAN linking for taxpayers till yesterday.

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