- According to Income tax officials,people may not be able to file their income tax returns for the coming financial year.It is because they are unable to link their Aadhaar to the Permanent Account Number(PANs).
- Since a person’s identity is authenticated biometrically,Aadhaar allows initials in the name.On the other hand,PAN is based on an old system that will not accept initials even if they are entered.A large number of people,especially in south India are not being able to link the two because of the name mismatch.Currently,the officials have no solution to the problem from their end.
- Earlier, the government had mandated that PAN and Aadhaar be linked for filing income tax returns from the next fiscal.This decision was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
- The reason behind mandatory provision is to avoid tax evasion because number of PAN card holders far exceeds the number of people filing income tax returns.Income tax returns filed stands at just about 16% of the total number of PANs allotted.
- Aadhaar is the name of the Unique Identification Number that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issues to every resident of India.It is a twelve-digit number which is linked to the resident’s demographic and biometric information.
- The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI),a statutory authority established in January 2009 by the Government of India,under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 was passed to provide legal backing to the Aadhaar project.
