| Note: PAN cardholders now have to pay Rs. 1,000 to link their PAN with Aadhaar and the last date to link PAN with Aadhaar is 30th June 2023. |
The Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT) has reiterated that Aadhaar-PAN linkage is mandatory for tax filing and the deadline for linking is the 30th June 2021. This follows the Supreme Court directive announced in September 2018 which upheld the constitutional validity of UIDAI’s Aadhaar.
The linking of PAN (Permanent Account Number) issued by the Income Tax Department and UIDAI’s Aadhaar is covered by the Central Board of Direct Taxes order dated 30th June 2018. Additionally, Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 also mandates that biometric-enabled Aadhaar needs to be mandatorily linked with PAN for individuals desirous of paying tax. More recently, on 6th February 2019, the Supreme Court has also announced that PAN-Aadhaar linking is mandatory for ITR filing.
With respect to the number of PAN-Aadhaar linkages that are still outstanding, available data shows that only 23 crore PAN holders have completed the process. This is just over 50% of the total number of PAN issued by the IT Department which is around 42 crore as per currently available data.