FM launches free E-PAN facility based on Aadhar

by Abha Kashyap Managing Patner

Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman on 28th May 2020, launched the facility for instant allotment of PAN card using Aadhar based E-KYC as announced in the union budget earlier. This facility is available for anyone who possess a valid Aadhar number and a mobile number registered in the UIDAI Database.

The trial version of this facility has been available since February 2020 and as per a Finance Ministry Statement, approx. 6.8 lakh instant PANs, with a turnaround time of about 10 minutes, have already been allotted.

The allotment process is paperless and an electronic PAN (E-PAN) is issued to the applicants free of cost by the Income Tax department. The process of applying for Instant PAN number is extremely simple. First, go to the e-filing website of the Income Tax department, then share your Aadhar number and submit the OTP that has been generated on the Aadhar registered mobile number.

After the completion of this process, a 15-digit acknowledgement number will be generated. Once allotted, the E-PAN card can be downloaded from the portal. The E-PAN may also be sent to the applicant’s e-mail id, if registered with Aadhar.

According to the Income Tax Department, on 25th May, a total of 50.52 crore PANs have been allotted to the taxpayers, out of which around 49.39 crore are allotted to individuals and more than 32.17 crore have been seeded with Aadhar so far.

It is said to be mandatory to link your PAN card with Aadhar till June 30th this year, failing which the PAN card will be inoperative. The IT department has also allowed all the income tax taxpayers to use their Aadhar number in lieu of PAN.

Originally published on www.kpalegal.com on 24th June 2020