In order to enjoy seamless Income Tax services, people are required to link their PAN card with Aadhaar card. The last date to link PAN with Aadhaar is March 31, 2019. People who fail to link their Aadhaar to PANs will not be able to file their income tax return
for the coming financial year.
for the coming financial year.
It may be noted that linking PAN card with Aadhaar is a fairly simple process. However, a lot of people might not be able to do so because while Aadhaar allows initials in the name, PAN, on the other hand, does not. Because of this, a lot of people are not able to link their PAN with Aadhaar. People, especially in south India are facing this issue, reported The Hindu citing Income Tax Department officials.
In a case where the name in Aadhaar is completely different from the name in PAN database, the linkage may fail. The PAN card holder is then required to change their name either in Aadhaar or in PAN database or visit personally to a designated PAN application centre of NSDL e-Gov or UTIITSL for biometric Aadhaar authentication.
The national daily report quoted an official saying, "This is a problem we have encountered a number of times since the linkage process started. In Aadhaar and passport, a person’s identity is tied to their biometrics, so their name on the document can have initials. The PAN software is at least 30 years old, and even if we enter initials, it will not accept them.”
He further told the publication that this problem is a result of two separate software systems. He also mentioned that tens of thousands of people are affected because of this problem. Since South Indian people generally have long names which are often abbreviated, this is a big issue for them.
A Bengaluru-based lawyer named B. Rangarajan told the publication, "This has been a major pain for me. It is affecting my entire family, and I have heard the same problem from many of my friends. My name in my Aadhaar and passport is with the first name abbreviated. In the PAN, the full name is given. Every time I try to link the two, it gives me an error message, saying it cannot be done because of a name mismatch."
Since changes in PAN take time, people affected by this can change their name in their Aadhaar card and then proceed to link it with the PAN card. While this might be tedious, it is the most feasible solution at the moment. However, this solution can lead to a name mismatch in key identity documents such as Aadhaar and passport.
Worth mentioning here is that there are many ways one can link their Aadhaar with their PAN card. They can either visit the income e-filing portal or they can use SMS facility to link their PAN card with Aadhaar. In order to link Aadhaar with PAN using SMS, one has to type UIDPAN(SPACE)(12-digit Aadhaar number)(SPACE)(10 digit PAN), for example, UIDPAN 111122223333 AAAPA9999Q and send it to 567678.
