The union government has collected over ₹600 crore as a penalty from defaulters who weren’t able to link their PAN with their Aadhaar card within the deadline. Till now, around 11.48 crore Permanent Account Numbers are yet to be linked with Aadhaar cards, the Ministry of State for Finance responded in parliament on Monday.
“Number of PANs not linked with Aadhaar, excluding exempted categories, is 11.48 crore as of January 29, 2024,” Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
The details about the amount collected in penalty of ₹1,000 from the persons who have not linked their PAN and Aadhaar after the last date were given in response to a question asked in the parliament. Answering the question, Chaudhary said, “The total collection of fee from persons who have not linked their PAN with Aadhaar is ₹601.97 crore from July 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024”. The last date to link PAN and Aadhaar was June 30, 2023.
According to the Income Tax Department order, PAN cards will become inoperative if taxpayers fail to link their documents with Aadhaar within the deadline. Moreover, no refunds would be made against such PANs. Failure to link PAN with the biometric document would also attract a higher rate of TDS and TCS deduction/ collection.
The PAN can be made operative again by paying a late fee of ₹1,000.
How to link a PAN card with an Aadhar?
-For those people who still haven’t linked their PAN and Aadhaar post-deadline, they can make it operational by linking the two documents by paying the penalty of ₹1,000. After the online process, it would take around one month for the PAN card to become operational again. Follow these steps to re-activate your PAN card.
-Visit the Income Tax e-filing portal: https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/
-If you are a new user, register on the portal.
-To pay the penalty, click the ‘e-Pay Tax’ option under the ‘Quick Links’.
-Then look and proceed for CHALLAN No./ITNS 280 for submission of the Aadhaar-PAN linking request.
-Pay the penalty under Minor head 500 (Fee) and Major head 0021 [Income Tax (Other than Companies)] in a single challan.
-Choose your preferred mode of payment.
-Enter your PAN details and the assessment year along with your address.
-Type the Captcha code and proceed.
-After making the payment log in to the Income Tax e-filing portal with your PAN details, password and date of birth.
-A pop-up window will show, to link PAN with Aadhaar. If not, go to ‘Profile Settings’ on the Menu bar and click on ‘Link Aadhaar’.
-Enter the required details like date of birth, gender, etc, as mentioned in the PAN card.
-Verify your details with the ones mentioned in Aadhaar.
-If your details match, enter your Aadhaar number and click on the “link now” button.
-Later, a pop-up message will confirm the successful linking of PAN with Aadhaar.
