Link your Aadhaar and PAN by August 31; no more extension of deadline

Source – businesstoday.in

August 31, 2017, is the last date to link your Aadhar card with permanent account number (PAN). The earlier deadline of July 31st was extended as many people expressed their inability to link the Aadhar and PAN due to difference in names.

However, after the Supreme Court of India’s verdict on privacy being our fundamental right, many are thinking that it might have an implication on the Aadhar and PAN linking and it can be avoided.

However, the privacy judgement was silent on its implications on Aadhar and as things stand today, linking of Aadhar and PAN is mandatory.

A nine judge bench pronounced the verdict that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right and integral part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty guaranteed in Article 21 of the constitution.

The matter has been referred to three-judge benches to decide whether Aadhar violates the Right to Privacy which many petitioners have claimed.

“The nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Puttaswamy case has decided the larger issue of the right to privacy being a fundamental right. As consequence, the three judge bench of the Supreme Court will now consider and decide the impact of the same on merits of the Aadhaar cases, and the validity of various aspects of the Aadhaar scheme. Until the decision, the deadlines for various schemes of Aadhar will continue unless the Supreme Court passes any interim direction in view of the decision of the larger bench,?” Mr Tejas Karia, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas said.

So, till any such judgement is passed by the three judge bench or any supreme court passes any interim order, it is mandatory to link the Aadhar with PAN. The implications of not linking the Aadhar with PAN will only be known after the judgement is out.

Sonu Iyer, Tax Partner & National Leader, People Advisory Services, EY India, said, “The ruling by the 9 member bench of the Supreme Court of India answers the question – whether ‘privacy’ is a fundamental right of every citizen of India? It does not deal with the validity of either the Aadhar Act or Section 139AA of the Income-tax Act making Aadhar mandatory for income-tax filing and PAN.”

“Unless a finding is made that Aadhar is constitutionally not valid, tax return filers will need to link their PAN with Aadhaar by August 31, 2017 as per CBDT Press Release dated July 31, 2017 so that the tax returns can be processed. Thus, unless Aadhaar and PAN are linked, Income-tax returns filed will not be processed. However, in any case, PAN will continue to remain valid after August 31, 2017 even where PAN and Aadhaar are not linked – as there is no notified date under Section 139AA(2) of the Income-tax Act.” he added.

By linking the Aadhar with PAN , the government is trying to solve the problem of people having multiple PAN cards and filing tax returns with those. Since Aadhaar is based on biometrics, the chances of duplication are much less as compared to PAN, which is not based on biometrics.

The government has also made it mandatory to link the banks accounts with Aadhar but the deadline for this is December 31, 2017. Hopefully, we will have a clarity till then.