Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: The deadline for linking Aadhaar with Permanent Account Number (PAN) was extended by the Central Government on Monday. The Aadhaar-PAN linking can now be done till August 31.
The decision was taken after a joint meeting of Revenue department and CBDT officials held in the finance ministry yesterday.
Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy making body of the IT department, stated that people were facing problems to link Aadhaar with PAN because their names were mentioned differently in the database.
The deadline for filing Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the 2016-17 financial has also been extended till August 5. The government has made it mandatory for a taxpayer to link the two databases for filing ITRs with effect from July 1.
The CBDT also mentioned that the dates have been extended on receipt of complaints from "some taxpayers" that they were unable to log on to the e-filing website of the Income Tax department.
Even if a person does not have Aadhaar, one can e-file return by quoting Aadhaar or acknowledgement number after applying for the same. The actual linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done subsequently and only then the ITRs will be processed.
The department, this time, has also asked taxpayers to declare cash deposits made in bank accounts aggregating Rs 2 lakh or more, post demonetisation between November 9-December 30 last year, in the ITRs.