Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday formally launched a facility for instant allotment of PAN or Permanent Account Number on a near-to-real-time basis. The move was in line with the announcement made in the Union Budget. The facility is now available for PAN applicants possessing a valid Aadhaar number and having a mobile number registered with Aadhaar.
Issued on a near to real-time basis, the instant allotment of PAN process is paperless and an electronic PAN (e-PAN) is issued to the applicants free of cost by the income tax department.
Although the facility of instant PAN through Aadhaar based e-KYC was launched formally today, however, its ‘Beta version’ on a trial basis has been on the e-filing website of the I-T department since February.
The trial version of the facility has been available since February 2020, and almost 6.8 lakh instant PANs, with a turnaround time of about 10 minutes, have already been allotted, according to a Finance Ministry statement.
As on May 25, 2020, a total of 50.52 crore PAN cards had been to taxpayers, out of which around 49.39 crores were allotted to individuals and more than 32.17 crores linked with Aadhaar.
The last date for the PAN-Aadhaar linkage is June 30, 2020.
The process of applying for an instant PAN card is extremely simple. Go to the e-filing website of the Income Tax Department, share your Aadhaar number, and submit the OTP generated on the Aadhaar registered mobile number.
On completion of this process, a 15-digit acknowledgment number will be generated. Once allotted, the e-PAN card can be downloaded from the portal. The e-PAN is also sent to the applicant on the email id is registered with Aadhaar.
It is mandatory to link your PAN card with Aadhaar within June 30 this year, failing which it will become inoperative. The income tax department has also allowed all income taxpayers to use their Aadhaar number in lieu of PAN.
