The Union Government has officially declared that Aadhaar card number and Permanent Account Number (PAN) card number must be linked mandatorily from July 1, 2017.

While addressing the amendments in the income tax rules, the government has clearly stated the quotation of Aadhaar number while applying for a PAN card. Aadhaar number has become mandatory for filing income tax returns and moreover, the Aadhaar must be linked to PAN cards and there have been many cases of tax evasion by using multiple PAN cards. In the Finance Bill for 2017-2018, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made the above statement through an amendment to the tax proposals.

In the country, there are about 25 crore PAN card holders and over 111 crore people have been issued Aadhaar cards. Earlier this month, Supreme Court had upheld the decision of making Aadhaar card mandatory for application of PAN card and Income Tax Returns filing. But now it has officially passed the decision. The Central Board of Direct taxes has stated that the linking of Aadhaar and PAN will be mandatory for filing income tax returns and applying for a PAN card from July 1.

The e-facility to link Aadhaar to PAN has been launched. Here’s the link for the same- https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/Services/LinkAadhaarHome.html . Until now 2.07 crore tax payers have linked their Aadhaar to their PAN cards.