Aadhaar-PAN linking deadline relaxed till 31 March; govt says move will help taxpayers to complete the process

The Central Board of Direct Taxes on Friday extended the deadline for linking Aadhaar with PAN from 31 December to 31 March, according to the Finance Ministry. The decision has been taken after the tax authorities noticed that some of the taxpayers were not able to link both the documents which slowed down the returns filing process. The tax department had earlier extended linking of Aadhaar with PAN from 31 August to 31 December, 2017. Today's extension has been granted in view of certain difficulties faced by the taxpayers. The Finance Ministry also informed about the decision. "It has come to notice that some of the taxpayers have not yet completed the linking of PAN with Aadhaar. Therefore, to facilitate the process of linking, it has been decided to further extend the time for linking of Aadhaar with PAN till 31st March,2018," Finance Ministry said.Under the provisions of recently introduced section 139AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act), with effect from 01.07.2017, all taxpayers having Aadhaar Number or Enrolment Number are required to link the same with Permanent Account Number (PAN). In view of the difficulties faced by some of the taxpayers in the process, the date for linking of Aadhaar with PAN was initially extended till 31st August, 2017 which was further extended upto 31st December, 2017, the PIB release said.[caption id="attachment_4248669" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational image. Reuters[/caption]This is what the Finance Ministry said in a tweet:

The decision comes just a day after the Narendra Modi government informed the Supreme Court that it wants to relax deadline for linking Aadhaar with various social welfare schemes. The Aadhaar mandates for welfare schemes were issued by the Modi government with an aim to stop pilferage of fodgrain subsidy money. For that, the government started the Direct Benefit Transfer, DBT, scheme under which the consumers are getting subsidy money directly into their bank accounts.