The Central Board of Direct Taxes on Saturday extended the last date for linking the Permanent Account Number with Aadhaar from September 30 to December 31, 2019. This is the seventh time the government has extended the deadline for individuals to link their PAN with Aadhaar, the Hindustan Times reported.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes frames policy for the tax department.

The PAN will become inoperative if it is not linked with Aadhaar before December 31. Processes related to investments, tax filing and loans can become difficult if the PAN and Aadhaar are not linked.

In her Union Budget speech on July 5, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said: “More than 120 crore Indians now have Aadhaar. Therefore, for ease and convenience of tax payers, I propose to make PAN and Aadhaar interchangeable and allow those who do not have PAN to file income tax returns by simply quoting their Aadhaar number and also use it wherever they are required to quote PAN.”

The finance minister had also proposed to make it easier for people to link PAN with Aadhaar. “Any person without a PAN will be able to obtain it on the basis of his/her Aadhaar card after the Income Tax Department obtains linked demographic data from the Unique Identification Authority of India,” she said.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes in a notification issued on August 30 said a person with an Aadhar number but not a PAN card “shall be deemed” to have applied for allotment of PAN and they will not be required to apply or submit any documents. It said the new rules were effective from September 1.

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