Just 6.2 crore out of 29 crore PAN cards linked with Aadhaar so far

Nearly 6.2 crore permanent account numbers (PANs) have been linked with Aadhaar accounts so far after the government directed all citizens to link the two unique numbers to be able to file income tax returns this year.

Of the 29 crore PAN card holders in the country, only 5.2 crore filed their tax returns last year. However, 98% of the Indians have the 12-digit unique biometric Aadhaar number.

The government earlier said that PANs not linked with Aadhaar numbers will eventually become invalid and not considered for identification purposes.

“More and more people are linking their PAN with Aadhaar...all those who have been filing their returns have already linked the numbers and the exercise is on. We are expecting the number to rise further,” a senior government official told HT.

Sources said that the number of PANs linked with Aadhaar may not exceed more than 20 crore.

The government in March mandated taxpayers to link the two numbers to weed out discrepancies in filing tax returns. The aim is to address the issue of illegal cash as lakhs of citizens hold multiple PANs and thousands of those cards are duplicates or have been obtained through fraud. “Besides, many people use different PANs to file their I-T returns to evade paying the actual amount…This is a problem that the income department has been facing for long, it needs to be resolved,” the official said.

The push to expand the usage of Aadhaar has triggered a torrent of criticism though the government has decided to go ahead with the move.