Aadhaar card will now double up as a PAN card for all purposes, announced Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in Parliament Friday.
While announcing the interchangeability, Finance Minister said citizens will be able to use Aadhaar card even for filing Income Tax. Aadhar number can now be used instead of PAN no wherever required.
“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,” Sitharaman said.
Budget 2019 also proposes that a person who has already linked his Aadhaar with his PAN, may at his option, use Aadhaar in place of PAN under the IT Act.
Budget proposes to make obtaining of a PAN card easy for Aadhaar holders, “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 (UIDAI),” said Sitharaman.
The Finance Minister also announced mandatory quoting of PAN/Aadhaar for certain prescribed high-value transactions for improving compliance.
The budget also proposed to amend the relevant penalty provisions for those failing to link Aadhar with PAN.
“If a person fails to intimate the Aadhaar number, the PAN allotted to such person shall be made inoperative in the prescribed manner after the date notified for the said linking,” said Sitharaman
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She also proposed that “Aadhaar card for NRIs with Indian passports now be issued after their arrival in India, without waiting for the mandatory 180 days.
The centrality of Aadhaar card for some government schemes was reinforced earlier in her speech when Aadhaar along with a bank account was made the only requirement for enrolment into a new pension scheme called Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan Scheme. This scheme, Sitharaman said, “will benefit about three crore retail traders & small shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than 1.5 crore.”
The centrality of Aadhaar card for some government schemes was reinforced earlier in her speech when Aadhaar along with a bank account was made the only requirement for enrolment into a new pension scheme called Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan Scheme. This scheme, Sitharaman said, “will benefit about three crore retail traders & small shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than 1.5 crore.”
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