PAN-Aadhaar linking: The Income Tax Department on Friday said that though the linking deadline ended on June 30, it will consider cases for individuals who have paid their penalty for linking the two id cards and consent has been received but linking is not done.
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In a tweet around 9 PM, the income tax department said that instances have come to notice where PAN holders have faced difficulty in downloading the challan after payment of fee for Aadhaar-PAN linking.
The income tax department said: “Instances have come to notice where PAN holders have faced difficulty in downloading the challan after payment of fee for Aadhaar-PAN linking. In this regard, it is to be informed that status of challan payment may be checked in ‘e-pay tax’ tab of portal after login. If a payment is successful, then PAN holder can proceed to link PAN with Aadhaar.”
It should be noted that the Income Tax law to link Aadhaar and PAN came into effect from July 1, 2017. Since then, the income tax department has extended the deadline to link the two many times. The last deadline was till June 30, 2023.
Further, in Budget 2021, the government added Section 234H to introduce penalty for linking PAN with Aadhaar after the deadline. Till March 31, 2022, there was no penalty amount to link the same. However, two-tier structure of penalty was imposed from April 1, 2022.
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As per Section 234H, a penalty of Rs 500 was to be levied if the PAN is linked to the Aadhaar between April 1, 2022 and June, 2022. However, if the PAN is linked to the Aadhaar on or after July 1, 2022, then a penalty of Rs 1,000 will be levied for linking PAN with Aadhaar.
The CBDT has said that if both the id cards are not seeded, PAN would become inoperative from July 1, 2023. As per Income-tax Act, 1961, it is mandatory for all PAN holders, who do not fall under the exempt category, to link their PAN with Aadhaar. Users should note that while income tax returns can be filed even without linking the two, the department does not process the returns until PAN and Aadhaar are linked.
