Amending income tax rules and notifying the same, the government has made quoting the 12-digit biometric Aadhaar or the enrolment ID a must at the time of applying for a PAN card. Finance minister Arun Jaitley through an amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill for 2017-18 had made Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and provided for linking of PAN with Aadhaar to check tax evasion through use of multiple PAN cards. Also read: How to link your Aadhaar and PAN details to file income-tax returnsBesides, it entrusted principal DGIT (systems) or DGIT (systems) with specifying the formats and standards along with procedure for verification of documents filed with PAN application or intimation of Aadhaar number. As many as 2.07 crore taxpayers have already linked their Aadhaar with PAN. Also read: Link Aadhaar with PAN using SMS: Income Tax departmentThere are over 25 crore PAN card holders in the country while Aadhaar has been issued to 111 crore people.

Source: Mint June 28, 2017 05:15 UTC